The Trinity

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is prohibited. Good evening. It is a pleasure to welcome you here tonight.

I am serving as the Teaching Elder and Pastor of Hope Christian Church and it is our honor to host this

Trinity Debate and I thank you for coming. My first question is, who's traveled in a state to be here tonight?

I know there's a few interstate. Where are you? Okay, they're being shy. There we go. There's a few hands there. There we go.

Who's traveled internationally? Alright, that's probably about it.

So as I said, I'm the Teaching Elder and Pastor here at Hope Christian Church. We have quite a representation from our home church and quite a representation from other churches abroad.

I do hope that among us there are UPC, Oneness people and there are Trinitarians and we're ready to hear a very sound, scholarly, academic, scriptural debate.

We're looking forward to that. So to get underway, I'm going to do some introductions and then we're going to let these gentlemen get amongst it.

So it is a pleasure to see you and thank you for dawning our building this evening. First and foremost,

I will start with the honorary, Craig Zarkey, who is our moderator. On the backside of one of these newsletters that you can get handed out at the door of all

Craig's information and where he's been, what he's done and why he's qualified to take on this moderation assignment tonight.

Now on to our debaters. First and foremost, I will introduce to you our Oneness Apologist, Mr. Roger Perkins.

Mr. Perkins is a 44 -year -old Oneness Apologist from Summit, Mississippi. Is that alright?

Okay, okay, okay. I've been practicing that all week. He has authored numerous books and journal articles delivering apostolic apologetics.

He's engaged in numerous public debates and is a member of the Apostolic Theological Forum. He is a former pastor on his return to the

US. After tonight's debate, he will plant a new church. Our next debater from the

Trinitarian position will be Dr. James White. Dr.

White will affirm our proposition this evening and as I said, you get yourself a handout and you'll read everything about him.

This is exhaustive and I'm not going to try except to say Dr. White has two, what I can tell, two doctorates, one in ministry, one in theology.

He has masters, he has bachelors, he has written 30 plus books and done over 110 moderated debates.

So these are our guests tonight and these are the gentlemen that will go at it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'll read the proposition and then

I'll go no further and let our gentlemen have at it. So the proposition is this. If you have a handout, again, you can read along on the front page.

All the information is in here and this is how our proposition reads. Did the Son, as a self -conscious divine person, distinct from the

Father and Holy Spirit exist prior to his incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth?

That's the question. Dr. James will have the affirmative and Dr. Roger will bring the negative.

Now just some notices before we start. I'll take another second or two to let you know that we are going to field some audience questions but they need to be submitted either on paper and pen to me before the break time, and you can find out when the break time is on the back, there is a debate schedule, or you can submit your question to me via SMS.

I will give you the number, pen and paper ready to get this down. I put it on the handout but it's wrong. I'll give you the number for you to take down.

If I get your questions early on, we'll be able to field them at the end of this particular debate. I do need to add a word of preface and warning.

There is a chance that we will not get to the question and answer time. If that's the case, I do want to offer my apology now but we don't know how things are going to pan out.

Our plan is to get to it. I will field questions to both participants and we'll see how the Lord orchestrates this evening.

So without any further ado, I'd like to introduce you to the Trinity debate here at Hope Christian Church. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, the first segment of tonight's debate is where each speaker will get to propose their substantive argument addressing the topic.

Each speaker will have 26 minutes and they will outline and define their case.

After this, then we'll have periods of rebuttal and cross -examination later. I would now like to invite

Dr. James to open the affirmative case to this evening. Well, thank you very much.

It is indeed an honour to be with you here in Brisbane this evening. This is my second time to Brisbane and I truly enjoy the opportunity of meeting with the brethren here and this is, of course, an extremely important debate and I hope that you will be very focused in hearing what both sides have to say this evening.

It is a pleasure to have Roger Perkins here. Now he knows and I know.

It's a long trip down here and hopefully he's been adjusted. I was just in Sydney.

I was at UNSW doing a debate Monday evening with Abdullah Kunda, an Islamic apologist, on the subject of the

Incarnation. So it is a similar topic that we are addressing this evening and I am very thankful for the opportunity to be with you indeed.

The subject that we have is a very important one. The debate between historic Trinitarian belief and the modern

Oneness Pentecostal position touches upon all aspects of theology proper including all aspects of Trinitarian theology itself.

And while some other issues that we will not have time to get into this evening, what I'm saying is there are many things that we will just barely touch upon tonight, some things

I will not touch upon that I think are extremely relevant, but we need to be focused very much upon the central issue this evening.

While some issues shed great light upon the viability of the respective views as I will illustrate with the issue of Christ the mediator, there is only one issue that in my opinion absolutely settles the conflict in and of itself.

And that is our thesis topic this evening, did the Son as a divine person, not as an idealized plan, not as a thought in the

Father's mind, but as a divine person aware of his own existence and the existence of the

Father and the Spirit exist prior to the incarnation itself, that is in eternity past?

Our question is very simple. If the Son as a divine person engaged in activities that only a person can engage in prior to the incarnation, prior to his birth in Bethlehem, then we have clearly a refutation of the oneness position.

For the whole aspect this evening will be is there a

Unitarian understanding of monotheism, that is there is only one person that shares the one being of God, or a

Trinitarian understanding of monotheism where you have the one being that is God, infinite and eternal, shared by three divine persons, the

Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Everyone here this evening is a monotheist. I am not just a conceptual monotheist,

I am a confessional monotheist and a functional monotheist. The question is does the

Bible teach that that one being, that one eternal being that is God, is that shared by three persons, or is that one being of God shared by only one person who takes different modes or relationships to his creation?

I want to go to the Bible because I believe the Bible is the foundational document of the

Christian faith. What I believe, I believe because the Bible teaches it. I am a biblical

Trinitarian. It would be much easier to adopt a different perspective, but I believe in sola

Scriptura, the Scripture alone is the sole and fallible rule of faith of the Church, and tota Scriptura, I must believe all that Scripture teaches.

And so I must harmonize all of the divine revelation. I cannot pick and choose, I cannot put one part of the revelation over another part of the revelation.

I must allow God's word to speak. And so I truly believe that the debate this evening will be decided in the inspired text itself.

I hope that you agree with me on that important issue this evening. Let's take a look at the

Carmen Christi, the hymn to Christ as God, Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 and following.

Let me just remind you this is a sermon illustration. The Apostle Paul is exhorting the Philippians to humility of mind, that they are to not look on their own things alone, but to look to the things of others.

Even though the Christians have equality with one another, they're to lay aside that equality in the service of others.

And so what do we have? Philippians 2, 5 through 11, you must have the same mindset among yourselves that was in Christ Jesus, who although he eternally exists in the very form of God, and Morphe Theou Huparkon, he existed in God's form.

It's the same word that's going to be used of his entering into servanthood. If he was a true human, a true servant, then he was truly

God, who although he eternally exists in the very form of God, did not consider, that is a word of something that a person does to consider something, to think about something, that's what a person does, did not consider that equality he had with God the

Father, something to be held on to at all costs, but instead he made himself nothing, cannot owe means to make oneself literally empty, but Paul never uses it that way, he always uses it metaphorically, and so he makes himself nothing, and how does he do so?

The amazing thing is it's not by ridding himself of anything, but by taking something on, by taking on the very form of a slave, there's

Morphe again, by being made in human likeness. So what is the nature of the sons, notice he says he made himself, that's a reflective pronoun, this is something the son does, the son makes himself nothing by taking on human flesh, this is the great humiliation, he who has been worshipped by the angels in heaven, who was seen by Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 6, worshipped by the

Sarah from the cherubim, he takes on a human nature, he invades his own creation, and having entered into human existence, he humbled himself, again, something he does, by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death, one dies on a cross.

Because of this, God the Father exalted him to the highest place and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that the mention of the exalted name of Jesus, everyone who is in heaven and on earth and on the earth bows the knee, and every tongue confesses

Jesus Christ is kurios, the very same term used in the Greek translation of the

Old Testament of the name of God Yahweh, Jesus the Messiah is kurios, but notice, all to the glory of God the

Father. The confession of the exalted status of Jesus also results in the glory of God the

Father. Now we have in these words, clear indication of the pre -existence of the son prior to the incarnation.

Christian exegetes down through the centuries have understood the passage to refer to the period prior to the incarnation when the son had equality with the

Father in heaven itself. But oneness advocates say this passage refers to the time of Jesus' human ministry.

If in fact the passage refers to the period before the incarnation of Christ, then it is plain that the son pre -existed as a person, was active and divine, and hence the debate is concluded if the

Trinitarian position is established. Remember, gave consideration, made himself of no reputation.

These are acts of a person, not acts of a plan. If the son could consider his relationship with the

Father, and in light of that, not hold on to that equality he had, but voluntarily lay it aside so as to take on a human nature, isn't that exactly what

Paul is telling the Christians to do? Don't look to your own things. Yes, you have equal rights, but lay them aside in the service of others.

You want the greatest example of that? Look at the son, who is eternally equal with the

Father, and yet, for the glory of the triune God, and the service of us, believe it or not, he lays aside those rights that are his, he enters into human existence, and he becomes obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

I also point out to you, the one who became obedient to the point of death is the one who had equality with the

Father. That means this is clearly before the incarnation.

The verbs tell the story. Have this attitude that was also in Christ Jesus, who although he eternally existed, not just as a plan, but he truly existed in the very form of God, did not consider action of a human, action of a person, that equality had with God the

Father something to be held on to at all costs, but instead he made himself nothing, action of a person, by entering into human flesh, that's the incarnation, by being made in the likeness of men.

The verbs tell the story, this one was preexistent and active as a person.

This is clearly what is being said. Syntactically, Paul presents two verbal clauses, separated by the adversative but, a law in verse 7, the actions of existing and considering equality go together.

This is important sense to consider, is the action of a person. The key verb is made himself nothing.

The possession of equality took place before the emptying. Taking the form of a servant describes the means of the made himself nothing as does being made in human likeness.

Jesus was made in the likeness of men, not on the night of his betrayal when he serves the apostles or at any other point.

He is made in the likeness of men at the incarnation, not at a time later in his ministry.

Therefore this passage teaches the deity of Christ, he exists in the form of God, as well as the distinct personhood of the

Son prior to the incarnation. The Son as the Son, distinguishable from the

Father has eternally existed as a divine person. There is the first text that we will need to look at very, very carefully this evening.

The next text we will need to look at, John chapter 17, John chapter 17, we will be focusing upon verse 5, obviously all of John 17 from my perspective is vitally important in the oneness debate.

For I truly believe that the prayers of Jesus are one of the greatest stumbling blocks that stands in the way of anyone accepting as biblical oneness teaching.

The idea that in the prayers of Jesus this is an internal conversation within one person who is actually two persons, so that the human side is praying to the divine side, simply doesn't work because in these prayers

Jesus not only refers to his pre -existence, but he refers to himself in terminology that can only be in reference to deity.

But if he is praying, then it is the human side, which is non -deity, that is doing the praying.

And hence the prayers of Jesus have truly been, I think, the greatest refutation down through history of all forms of modalism in their anti -Trinitarian expression.

John chapter 17, verses 3 through 5 say, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true

God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on the earth, having accomplished the work which you have given me to do.

Now, Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

I simply suggest to you before we look any more closely at the text, that in any normative human language, any normative human language, that text presents one person speaking to another person.

I don't think there's any question about it at all. This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true

God. So he's referring to the deity. And Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Well, to have eternal life is to know two persons?

Yes, two persons. But Jesus Christ is distinguished because he's the one speaking.

And he is sent. And he says, you have sent. Then I glorified you on the earth, having accomplished the work which you have given me to do.

Now, he identifies who he's referring to specifically. Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which

I had with you before the world was. In any normative human language, that is one person making reference to another person.

Now, look at the text even more closely. Given the personal pronouns, there is no question that these are the words of one person speaking to another person.

You have direct address, father. Me, the person speaking, recognizes his own personhood.

Yourself recognizes the personhood of your father, the glory which I had with you before the world was.

He's talking about a period of time where the father and the son existed together, and it's before the world was.

Same time period we saw in the Carmen Christi. Together with yourself, a truly divine glory.

Glorify me. If this is just a human nature speaking, then can human nature's request to be glorified with a glory which they had in the presence of the father before they ever came into existence?

This is a truly divine glory. No plan or idealized concept can speak, let alone speak like this, of clearly divine and personal preexistence.

A .T. Robertson wrote, with thine own self, para se auto, by the side of thyself, that's

Robertson speaking. He's referring to the normal spatial use of the preposition para.

Jesus prays for full restoration to the pre -incarnate glory and fellowship, referring to John 1 .1.

Enjoyed before the incarnation, John 1 .14, the word became flesh.

This is not just ideal preexistence, but actual and conscious existence at the father's side, para soi, with thee.

Now you can tell Robertson wrote a while back because we don't normally say thee and thou much anymore, but that's okay.

What's his point? The point is that the words would have to be taken in a grossly unnatural way if what we actually have here is something about an idealized plan speaking.

Idealized plans do not look back upon a time before their fruition and say back then

I had glory with you, restore me to that position that I had. Instead here in Christ's high priestly prayer, very clearly we have the distinction between the father and the son, and yet the son knows of a time when in the presence of the father, before the world existed, he shared the very glory of the father.

Now remember, Yahweh said in Isaiah chapter 45 and Isaiah chapter 48, he will share his glory with none other.

And so it would be blasphemous for a mere human nature, let alone an idealized plan, to somehow speak and say glorify me with the glory that I had with you before the world was.

This is clearly one divine person who has taken on human nature, he has voluntarily made himself of no reputation, he has entered into human flesh, and he is about to experience the consummation of that work upon the cross.

And then he knows that after that time is the resurrection, the justification of the faithful servant, and his entrance back into the state of glory.

That's why he said in John 14, 28, if you loved me you would have rejoiced because I said I'm going back to the father, for the father is greater than I am.

That term greater is positional, not better than I am, but in a greater position than I am.

The father wasn't being followed around by Pharisees always trying to catch every word he said. He was going back into that presence of the father that was his in eternity past.

Indeed as I said before, all the prayers of the Lord Jesus demonstrate the distinct personhood of the son, yet they likewise prove the deity of the son as well.

These are not examples of the human side praying to the divine side, but of a divine yet incarnate person, the son, communicating with a divine but non -incarnate person, the father in heaven.

Last main text of the three that I want to present demonstrating the thesis that the son pre -existed as a divine person before his birth in Bethlehem, John 1, 1.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him and apart from him.

Nothing came into being that has come into being. We all know John 1, 1. You probably have discussed it maybe with some

Jehovah's Witnesses who came knocking on the door, woke you up early on a Saturday morning. In the beginning was the word.

The term ein is the imperfect form of I am me. It does not point to a point of origin in time where the word comes into existence.

As far back as you push the beginning, the word already was.

The word experiences timeless existence, and the word was with God, pros, face to face with.

There is a relationship that exists, and notice the use of the word ein again.

It is an eternal relationship that exists as we'll see between the father and the son.

The third clause, and the word was God. The word was deity.

I translate it that way because for those of you who have studied this, the os comes before the verb.

It is a pre -verbal and arthurist predicate nominative. Isn't that wonderful? What does that mean?

Generally it means that it is describing the nature of the subject of the clause.

So what does John 1 -1 tell us? The word has eternally existed, the word has relationship with the father, and the word is as to his nature, deity.

Now we want to emphasize that second phrase. Who is the God with whom the word eternally was?

This is the father, as John tells us in John 1 -18, the bookend of John 1 -1. You know the bookends you use on a shelf on one side and the other side.

That's also a common tool in writing to state something in the beginning, you elaborate on it, and then you restate it at the end.

What does John 1 -18 tell us? No one has ever seen God. It is God the only son. The term is monogamistheos, who is close to the father's heart, who has made him known.

So when it says no one has ever seen God, lots of people in the Old Testament saw God, but John goes on to say it is

God the only son, the monogamistheos, who is close to the father's heart, who has exegeted him, explained him, made him known.

The God who has not been seen is the father, but it is God the only son, Jesus the

Messiah, who is close to the father's heart, who makes known the father. The God with whom the word eternally existed is, likewise, the father.

Yet this is exactly what John does tell us, for by using the phrase God the only son in John 1 -18, he clearly indicates that the son is and was deity, and the son was with the father from eternity, just as we see in John 1 -1.

So we have three texts that I firmly believe we must exegete in full this evening.

I will challenge Mr. Perkins to give us in -depth, consistent reading of each one of these texts in their context to be able to provide a refutation of the assertion that has been made that each one of these texts, taken in context as they were written, presents the fact that Jesus existed as a divine person prior to his birth in Bethlehem.

But I also want to ask two questions to wrap up our discussion and to focus it in our thinking this evening, because we're hopefully not just here this evening to have some kind of abstruse discussion of theological facts.

This is about the gospel. This is about life. Hopefully we're here because we really believe these things matter.

I certainly would say that's why I am here this evening. And so I have a couple of questions that would tie this issue directly to what we believe is the gospel.

For example, if the Son does not exist as a divine person before the incarnation, then what does

Hebrews 10 -5 mean? Because it says, therefore, when he came into the world, that's the

Son. When he came into the world, he said, sacrifice an offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me.

You have prepared a body? Who's the you? This is talking about the preparation of the body.

Who prepared the body? The one who took the body is saying, you prepared the body for me.

So who is this, since this is before the incarnation? I mean, it's talking about the preparation of the body. It's when he came into the world.

So who are the people that are described here? I would say to you, this is the Son, making reference to the

Father, as the book of Hebrews would very clearly make it known to us. So there's one question.

And then, very, very importantly, who is the mediator?

If Jesus was actually the Father in his deity, and the

Son is but a human creature that came into existence in Bethlehem, sinless, but still a human creature, not eternal, where is he now?

Hebrews 9, verse 24 speaks of the Son and says, For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.

One of the greatest, most beautiful truths of the Christian faith is that this night, the sinless

Son of God, the God -man, who is the Lamb standing as if slain, stands in the presence of the

Father for me and for every person who has faith in him. And that is the surety of my peace with God.

That is the surety of my salvation. It's not found in myself. It's found in the fact that there is one who has entered into the holy place.

I am united with him. His sacrifice is my sacrifice. His resurrection is my resurrection.

His righteousness is my righteousness. And he stands in the presence of the Father, finished.

It is finished, he said, the Lamb standing as if slain. And if I am in him, then the

Father sees his Son, his work completed. And if I am in him, then

I have a perfect relationship with the Father. That's the basis of justification by faith.

That's the basis of understanding the basis of God's grace. It's beautiful, but how does it work in oneness theology?

Because if Jesus was the Father and the Son, then who is

Jesus now standing before? Because has the Father left the Son and now the

Son is just a human being and the Father has become the Holy Spirit. And so who is, is

Jesus now just a human nature appearing in the presence of the

Holy Spirit? That's not what scripture teaches. And so you see, these are not just side issues for us.

These touch on the very gospel itself. So I want to ask you as the audience, focus upon the thesis.

Did the Son exist as a divine person distinguishable from the

Father prior to his incarnation? That's the question this evening.

Now you see why it's so important. Thank you very much for being here tonight. Thank you to Dr.

White for opening the case for the affirmative, which is the orthodox position and it's the status quo.

With a less popular and possibly more difficult argument, we are now going to invite

Mr. Roger Perkins to the stand to open the negative case. Let's make him welcome. Thank you so much.

I greet you in the name of Jesus Christ. And I first want to mind my manners and say how much

I greatly appreciate Mr. Ireland and this local congregation here for having us out.

As Mr. White has already indicated, it's certainly a long way to go to fuss and argue, but I'm glad I came and I'm glad to be here.

In fact, they've treated me so well that if they want me to come back and fuss and argue again, well just let me know. I'll be glad to do it.

But I certainly do appreciate and I appreciate Mr. White being here as well. But I believe that Mr.

White and I would both agree, and it may be the only place we do agree tonight, but this speaks volumes for your quest for truth and for your desire for truth.

However you may conclude that truth, still, it speaks volumes for your quest for truth and we're greatly humbled by that.

I want to say at the outset that no remarks whatsoever are intended personally against Mr.

White or against anyone else in this building. We are here because we care, but we do have to plainly identify our distinctives.

So let me briefly do that. Let me get into our distinctive positions, which have already been established to some extent.

But the Trinitarian and the oneness construct, there are paramount reasons of why we have such a vast difference.

Basically the reason is that we have an entirely different hermeneutical approach. That is, we have different launching pads.

Typically the Trinitarian starts with the New Testament and works their way back into the Old Testament, as my opponent has done tonight.

That is, Trinitarians usually begin with the plurality of the New Testament distinctions of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and then they end with the same plurality because they begin with a plurality.

Oneness, folks, by contrast, begin with the foundation of the Old Testament, and we work from the concrete upward.

We begin, as did the New Testament writers, with the Old Testament scriptures that declare that Yahweh is numerically one.

Likewise, we end up with the same conclusion that Yahweh is numerically one.

The Old Testament concepts prepare us to understand the message of the New Testament, as the

Bible says that the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ. And the

New Testament writers directly quote the Old Testament text approximately 300 times.

Out of the 27 New Testament books, 20 endorse the Old Testament and its

Hebraic concepts through quotes and references. Only six of the

Old Testament books are not quoted in the New Testament, and the Old Testament comprises roughly 70 % of the

Bible as a whole. When you combine the direct quotes, references, and allusions in the

New Testament to the Old Testament, it references the Old Testament approximately 3 ,000 times.

It's an educational principle, ladies and gentlemen, that you work from the known to the unknown.

You work from the concrete to upwardly. No carpenter builds a house and begins with the roof and works his way down.

You always start with the foundation and work your way upward. I will very respectfully tonight tell you that the

Trinity doctrine, in our estimation, has a faulty foundation. They always begin with the roof, if I could put it like that, of the

New Testament. No one learns calculus before they learn arithmetic. No one learns

Shakespeare before they learn the English alphabet. Later revelation builds upon former revelation, not drastically alters it or amends it, particularly when it comes to God's very identity.

The results in our different starting points is that oneness people understand the New Testament distinctions between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which we readily concede, as arising in the

Incarnation. This explains why we never see Father and Son distinctions in the

Old Testament. Trinitarians understand the New Testament distinctions to be between three divine, eternal, co -equal individuals.

My opponent has not hesitated one bit elsewhere to use the word individual as applied to the persons of the

Trinity. The Trinitarians read back into the Old Testament instead of using it as a foundation, as did the

New Testament writers. And the proposition tonight is basically that the Father and the Son exist prior to the

Incarnation. Now, if this is the case, we should have no problem finding the Son in the

Old Testament. But yet my opponent has appealed to Scripture after the Incarnation, not prior to the

Incarnation. But yet I would ask, where is he at in the Old Testament? We don't find him in the

Old Testament. Because Trinitarians begin with New Testament plurality. When they try to fit numerical monotheism into the equation, they wind up with the number one being a oneness of unity, instead of allowing its most natural usage to be the cardinal numerical one.

Probably going to be asserted tonight that we assume that the number one is one person instead of one being.

Yet I'll tell you at the outset, there is absolutely no Hebrew or Greek distinction offered on the pages of the

Bible separating being from person. Thus the entire discussion is removed from the pages of Scripture, contrary to the

Torah and the Tota Scriptura that we heard about tonight. I submit to you that no biblical distinction will be found between person and being.

We are both a what, a being, and a who, a person, at the same time.

And we are in God's image. We are his reflection. It's entirely, and again I say this respectfully, but it is an entirely unbiblical

Trinitarian invention in order to force a doctrine into a text that never states the same.

Let me give you a few grammatical facts from the Old Testament that shows that we're not assuming that Yahweh is one individual, but that the text indeed forces us to believe that God exists as one individual.

And indeed, oneness Pentecostals feel that we are held hostage by the very Scriptures to deny the doctrine of the

Trinity. The Tetragrammaton Yahweh is mentioned approximately 7 ,000 times in the

Old Testament. Virtually always, almost every time it is mentioned with singular personal pronouns.

The term God, Lord God, and Yahweh is mentioned over 12 ,000 times, and not one time will you find three divine individuals mentioned in the text.

Approximately 9 ,000 times God applies singular personal pronouns to himself.

Trinitarianism would have us to impose three separate divine individuals back upon 9 ,000 singular personal pronouns, which is just a grossly unnatural interpretation and reading of a singular personal pronoun.

810 ,677 words, ladies and gentlemen, 31 ,103 verses, 9 ,000 singular personal pronouns by God's covenant people, and not one single time did they ever acknowledge a multi -individual deity in 4 ,000 years of Hebrew history.

This is the scriptural environment from which the New Testament writers sprang and eluded back to.

The New Testament writers' writings were corny Greek indeed, but their paradigm was Old Testament Hebraic Hebraism, which they were not seeking to radically alter.

I submit tonight that 90 years of New Testament history does not radically alter 4 ,000 years of Hebrew revelation of God's very identity.

Our position tonight is that the one Old Testament God that we read about loved humanity enough that he came down and manifest himself in the flesh in order to save us.

This one Old Testament Yahweh assumed a human mind at the incarnation distinct from his divinity.

Thus, there was a simultaneous conscious awareness of himself both as God and man without mixture.

This explains why we see never any father and son distinctions in the Old Testament.

Ask yourselves tonight, why is it that we never see, read, even read of the father and the son under the

Old Testament? This would be very strange behavior for two eternal individuals with absolutely no dialogue from a second eternal divine individual.

If there were no co -eternal divine persons in the Old Testament, ladies and gentlemen, what would we expect?

Nothing. What do we find, ladies and gentlemen? Nothing. Not until the New Testament that you read such interaction when

God actually fathered a son in Luke chapter 1. This is precisely the reason that Jesus is called the

Son of God in the sense that God fathered a son at Bethlehem, and this is indeed the most natural understanding of the phrase son of, who

Jesus is never identified as in the scriptures as God the son or an eternal son or a second of three divine individuals.

Jesus is the God man. At times, he spoke and acted from his genuine humanity. For example, when he slept and when he grew weary, yet Psalm 121 tells us that God as God neither slumbers nor sleeps, yet Jesus slept in the bottom of the boat.

Isaiah 40 says that God neither faints nor grows weary, yet Jesus grew weary on the well,

Jacob's well. Yet Jesus did both all of these things according to his humanity. At other times,

Jesus spoke and acted from his deity. When he gave sins, whenever he walked on the water as God, we would submit that he was transcendent operating beyond the incarnation.

As the son of God, he functioned within the self -imposed limitations of the incarnation in the sense that that self -same

God that we've been reading about the whole time under the Old Testament is the one who came in the New Testament.

So that in the final analysis, we have a full God and a full man without mixture.

Now we're probably going to hear tonight that Oneness Pentecostals have a schizophrenic bi -personal

Jesus and it is a total straw man. I don't know of a Oneness Pentecostal alive who says that.

I don't know of one and I know many, but I'm prepared to deal with it and we will see tonight before the night's over that it's actually my honorable opponent who is guilty of splitting

Jesus, but I'll just wait till that till that comes up. The natural implication of the Trinitarian position necessitates, necessitates that the first and the third divine co -eternal individual within their own minds loved us enough that they ordered the second divine co -eternal individual with his own mind to endure the horrors of Calvary to be beat, to be spit upon, to be whipped, and to be crucified.

As Jesus himself said in John 7 and 28 and 8 and 42, I did not come of my own initiative, but he sent me.

W .E. Vines and Joseph Thayer, I realize Thayer is a bit dated, but you don't just throw out the baby with the bathwater.

There's still some interesting things that he says and also my opponent appeals to Joseph Thayer as well. His book's right over here that I've got.

But, but Joseph Thayer said that the Greek verb sent when he says I did not come of my own initiative, but he sent me is the

Greek verb apostello and it defines as to order one to go to another place.

So the first and the third divine individual ordered the second divine individual to be beat, to be marred, and to be hung upon a tree.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Trinitarian natural ramification of the belief. It's not a straw man and I would ask my opponent tonight to adequately deal with John 8 and 42 from the

Trinitarian perspective. Yet the oneness position is that the one we've been reading about the whole time under the

Old Testament is the same one that arrives on the scene in the New Testament. The same familiar

God we've been reading about in the Old Testament is the same one who came to die as a man. Ephesians 2 and 20 tells us that the

New Testament church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.

Of course, a reference to the Old Testament prophets upon whom the New Testament writer is built. This tells us that the, teaches us rather, that the

Old Testament Jewish prophets and the New Testament Jewish apostles had the same foundation.

No one is going to pick up their Bible and read from Genesis to Malachi and read the 9 ,000 singular personal pronouns applied to God, which

Mr. White tells us in the New Testament infers one person. So when we try that out in the

Old Testament and one singular personal pronoun is applied to God 9 ,000 times, no one's going to read from Genesis to Malachi, then turn the page to Matthew and read where it says he is

God with us and naturally arrive that Jesus is the second divine individual in the

Trinity. It is an entirely unnatural and forced interpolation. The Old Testament Jewish prophets did not understand

God to be one individual, didn't understand God to be one individual 9 ,000 singular personal pronouns.

Then the New Testament Jewish apostles come along and add two divine individuals to God. They had the same foundation, not different foundations.

John chapter 4 and verse 22, Jesus says that the Jews know what they worship.

Now, Mr. White has derided me on his show, The Dividing Line, over and over on my use in many things, by the way, but, but on my usage of Gnosko versus Oida, but I'll just let him argue with Dr.

W .E. Vine here tonight. Dr. Vine says this, the differences between Gnosko and Oida, well, let me explain first, there's two words.

Jesus says the Jews know what they worship. Now, there's two Greek words for know, primarily, there's other, but primarily two

Greek words and that is Gnosko and Oida. W .E. Vine says this, he says the differences between Gnosko and Oida demand consideration.

Gnosko frequently suggests progress in knowledge, while Oida suggests fullness in knowledge.

Now, again, Mr. White can argue with W .E. Vine, I didn't write that, that didn't come out of my mouth, that comes, I read that in his book.

So, Jesus carefully uses the stronger term Oida in John chapter 4 when he says the

Jews know what they worship. How could the Jews know what they worship when the

Jews have never worshipped three individuals in a trinity? Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, according to this construct, were all ignorant of God's true identity.

The prophets who wrote about him, obviously, we would have to conclude, had a misunderstanding of who he really was.

If that's the case, how can we trust the Old Testament writings or the New Testament writings which is founded upon the

Old Testament? The consequences of the trinity doctrine would be that the Jews did not know what they worship in contrast to the words, very words of Jesus.

They only worshipped one individual, divine individual, who described himself with 9 ,000 singular personal pronouns and my opponent has stated repeatedly that the revelation of the trinity took place between the

Old Testament and the New Testament. The apostles, he says, were the first experiential

Trinitarians. Yet, it would be incredible to think that Yahweh's Old Testament covenant people such as Abraham who is presented to us as the friend of God, David who was the man after God's very own heart, on and on I could go but they all misunderstood

God's very fundamental identity and they never truly experienced God. Yet, Moses stood on Mount Sinai and spoke with God mouth to mouth but apparently he never truly experienced the true

God. The Old Testament repeatedly prophesied to us that the Messiah would come and that he would be the one

God of the Old Testament. Isaiah 35, it says this, it says, your

God shall come, who? The Jews God shall come, then shall the blind eyes be opened and the deaf ears unstopped.

Who did Isaiah say would come, ladies and gentlemen? The second person of the blessed holy trinity? No, the one

Old Testament singular God of the Jews and this self -same God became known as God the

Father after he begat a son at Bethlehem. Isaiah 44 and 6 says one king.

Now, if anybody just stood up and said there's one king, nobody's going to think that that's three persons.

That's the natural understanding of one king is one person and this one king says in Isaiah 44 and 6,

I am the first and I am the last and there is no God beside me, singular personal pronoun.

Isaiah 43, 11, I, singular personal pronoun, am Yahweh. There is no savior besides me, singular personal pronoun.

Isaiah 43, 12, I, singular personal pronoun, am God. No one can deliver out of my hand, singular right, singular personal, my hand.

One hand, what does that naturally come into your mind when I mention one king and one hand,

I, me, what comes to your mind? Three persons in the trinity or one person? Naturally, one person.

I could take you to thousands of verses where one individual speaks with singular personal pronouns, which

Mr. White tells us in the New Testament indicates person. When God the Son speaks with a singular personal pronoun, that's one person, he tells us.

When God the Father speaks, that's one person, you, but then when we apply that to 70 percent of the Bible and 4 ,000 years of Hebrew revelation, the

Trinitarian position is undercut. I could take you to over 900 verses where the

Hebrew word for echad or for one, echad, means a singular numerical one and it's certainly how those who heard it understood it.

Of course, the Shmob could get into that but don't have time really, but having clearly established now, both biblically and historically, that the

God of the Old Testament is one singular individual with absolutely, and there's so much more I could give you, but with absolutely no understanding of a trinity of divine individuals or separate persons.

Let's look at the New Testament now. Jesus authenticated the Old Testament in Mark chapter 12 whenever he says that the most important commandment of all is that we believe that the

Lord is one. Now, there are three Greek words for one and again,

Mr. White has been pretty hard on me on his dividing line and derided me pretty good, so I've been having it packed up for about three months.

I've been waiting to get here, so y 'all just have mercy on me, but he told me here that Mr.

Perkins confuses heis, mea, and hen, the three Greek words that are translated as one, and he says they just mean one.

Well, I know that. That's what I said. I said they mean one, but it's the genders that are important.

Heis is generally in the masculine singular. Hen is in the neuter singular and that I could get into mea in the feminine singular, but that's really outside of our purposes right now, but Jesus purposefully employs the masculine singular heis in Mark chapter 12, ladies and gentlemen, when he says that the

Lord is one. Let's see what a few New Testament Greek lexical authorities say about the masculine singular heis, and we're going to see it's not abuse as I have been charged with.

If I am charged again tonight with abuse of lexicons, I'll just simply pull out my honorable opponent, some of his abuse that I've noted, and I've got the articles right there, but let's look at what a few lexicons say about this

Greek word heis in the masculine singular. Spiros Notiades, Hebrew and Greek study Bible, page 1686, number 1520, says about heis, this is the first cardinal numeral, numerically one, one person.

Thayers, page 186, says that this is a cardinal numeral, one singular alone.

He translates the masculine singular heis in Galatians 328 as one person.

So does the new English Bible, by the way, Robertson's word pictures, volume five, pages 186 and 278.

Speaking of heis in the masculine singular, he says this is one person. I could point you to Bower's Greek English lexicon as well, but even more importantly, you could look on page 208, footnote 46 of my opponent's book,

The Forgotten Trinity, and he argues that the masculine singular denotes personhood. To further illustrate heis, the

Septuagint translation of the Hebrew echad in Ezekiel 33 -24 translates it like this.

It says that Abraham was only one person or one man.

The Tanakh, the RSV, the New Living Translation, the Amplified, the NIV, all translate this as one man.

This, ladies and gentlemen, are one person. Also, this is the same word that Jesus purposely chose to identify

God. Kenneth Wheat's Word Studies, Greek New Testament, volume one, pages 106 -107.

Heis is masculine and therefore refers to a person. God is one individual.

Jesus carefully employs the masculine singular heis and commands us to believe that the Lord is one person and he uses the most emphatical word possible for God's identity.

I would ask you tonight, how in the world can we force three divine individuals into this very exclusive word?

Heis is used almost 100 times in the New Testament relating to personhood and not one time does it relate to more than one person.

This, I'll tell you again, is the word that Jesus Christ himself chose to identify God. On ABN, while my opponent was discussing

John chapter 10 and verse 30, in part one, he said this. He said, in John 10 and 30,

Jesus used the neuter one, so it's not one person, he said. Go look it up for yourself.

It's his very words. He says that he employs the neuter, not the masculine, thus he's not referring to personhood.

In other words, if Jesus would have employed the masculine in John 10 -30, we would have a person.

Well, let's just go right back and apply that logic to Mark chapter 12 and verse 29, where Jesus did use the masculine singular

Heis to identify who God was, and he said that this is the first of all the commandments, the most important commandment.

So everything else that we read about the identity of God has to fall under this exclusive term, and likewise in Galatians 3 and 20 also you can read.

On the dividing line, Mr. White said that these Greek words simply mean one. Well, that's my whole point.

They mean one and not three. Robertson, Fawcett and Brown, Marvin Vincent, the

New English Bible, all translate Galatians 3 and 28 as one man or one person, and it's the masculine singular

Heis. In the September 7, 2010 podcast around the 14 -minute mark,

Mr. White made this statement. He said the scriptures do not tell us that God is one person. Well, they sure don't tell us

God is three persons either, but if you turn to the Amplified Bible, ladies and gentlemen, all you got to do is turn there and read it for yourself because I'll probably be accused of abusing it, but you can read yourself and it says, now a go -between or an intermediary has to do with and implies more than one party, yet God is one person.

You can read that for yourself. The antithesis is that the function that a mediator does not perform,

God is. In other words, a mediator is not a mediator for one person, but God is one person.

I'm not sure how it could be any plainer than this. It's very, very clear language. The New English Bible, the

Amplified Bible, the RSV, the New Living Translation, the NIV, Spiros Nodiotis, A .T.

Robertson, Joseph Thayer, Kenneth Wiest, each of these linguists translates the masculine singular

Heis as one person, and it's the same lexicons that my opponent uses in his book.

Jesus is, ladies and gentlemen, the one Old Testament God manifest in the flesh to us for the sake of the redemption of mankind.

He is not a second of three divine individuals in a trinity that absolutely no one knew existed for 4 ,000 years.

This is not misusing and abusing lexicons. I'll say it again, but again, I will demonstrate tonight before it's over my opponent's misuse.

The lexicons give the literal definition and from there they begin their commentary and they begin their interpretation.

I know that, but a literal definition is not commentary. Colossians chapter 2 and verse 9 says this, in Christ dwells all the fullness, pastoral pleroma, of the

Godhead in bodily form. The Greek word for all, lexicographers define as the whole, everything.

The Greek word for fullness is pleroma. Bowers, page 672, defines pleroma like this, the full measure of deity.

See Colossians 2 and 9. If I'm accused of misusing it and taking it out of context, they say this in Bowers' lexicon.

Vine 47 defines this word as God in the completeness of his being.

The whole completeness or full measure of God's being dwells in Christ. Who, allowing the text just to speak for itself, would read

Colossians 2 and 9 where it says, for in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and conclude that Jesus is the second divine individual in the

Trinity. It is a grossly unnatural, forced interpolation into the word of God. I have another page here, but my time is up.

Thank you so much. God bless you. Thank you,

Mr Perkins. A spirited reply and indeed throwing down the challenge to our affirmative status quo.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're now entering the next phase of the debate and this is a series of rebuttals.

Now a rebuttal section is where each speaker gets to attack the main arguments of their opponent.

They need to attack it substantively and then link it back into their own argument to once again demonstrate the strength of their own case.

No new material or brand new arguments can be introduced at this stage. New examples can be introduced, but no brand new arguments.

Each speaker will have 15 minutes in their first rebuttal round and after this first round we will have a short break and then we'll have a second rebuttal round after that.

So I'd like to invite our affirmative speaker, Dr James White, for his first rebuttal.

Let's make him welcome. Well, thank you very much.

I hope you were listening very closely so that we can get right to the important material here. Mr Perkins has said that we have entirely different hermeneutical approaches.

Yes, I would suggest to you that when you do what Mr Perkins says we should do and limit

God's revelation of himself only to what you have in the Old Testament, or at least how Mr Perkins understands the

Old Testament, then why did Jesus come? Because when you think about it, what happened in the coming of Jesus Christ?

Are we seriously to say that, well, you're limited in your understanding of God to what you can derive from the

Old Testament and there could be nothing more? Apply that to the book of Hebrews. Think what would happen to the book of Hebrews if the

Jews took the position Mr Perkins does. Because everything the book of Hebrews says, those were types and shadows, there's a greater fulfillment, there's something much more.

Oh no, no, no, you've got the wrong hermeneutical approach. If you do that then you have to dismiss the entirety of the apologetic portion of the book of Hebrews, which is all the book of Hebrews is about.

We accept everything the Old Testament says. We start with the Old Testament. It says there's one God. The problem is it does not say that there's one

Unitarian God. And you can have all the singular pronouns. I don't know how many times you've heard singular pronouns.

That's not even an argument tonight. I believe in the singular pronouns. All the argument is, well, if he was a

Trinitarian God he would have used plural pronouns. The revelation of the doctrine of the Trinity takes place in the incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the

Spirit of God. That took place between the Testaments. We have to allow God to be free to reveal himself.

What if the people later on after Moses said, we're only going to stick with Moses, we're not going to accept anything that Isaiah says.

You see, this is not a meaningful hermeneutical approach whatsoever. He says we should have no problem finding the

Son in the Old Testament. Well again, the specific revelation of the divine persons takes place in the incarnation and in the outpouring of the

Holy Spirit of God between the Testaments. But I see the Son in the Old Testament and so did the early church writers called the apostles.

We see him in Psalm 2, kiss the Son. We see him in Psalm 22, the Messianic Psalm. We see in Isaiah 53, the suffering servant who's to come.

We see him in Isaiah 43, the I Am that Jesus quotes himself in John 13, 19. We see him in Genesis 18, the

Yahweh who walks on earth and rains fire and brimstone from Yahweh in heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

We see him in Isaiah chapter 6. He's the one seen, according to John chapter 12, by Isaiah himself.

Even in Isaiah 9 -6, we have a child that is born to us, Yalad. The Hebrew root there refers to natural birth.

But a son is given to us. I see him all over the place, but the specific revelation of that takes place in the incarnation.

Now we said that there is no biblical distinction between being and person. Is that what we were told? Yet, oneness folks use those categories.

In fact, Mr. Perkins, in talking about Jesus, said that he assumed a human mind.

Where's that kind of category in the New Testament? Where's that kind of language? If we're going to say, well you have to use only biblical language, can the oneness person explain the relationship of the divine and human in Jesus without violating his own standards at that point?

We need to be consistent at that point. Now, first and third persons, we were told, the first and third persons sent the

Son, and I was asked to deal with John 8 -42. This is another wonderful example of where we have to allow the scriptures to speak for themselves.

We must harmonize them, not set them in contrast to one another. When Jesus says he did not come of himself, he says op emal 2, follow the use of reflexive pronouns, the

Johannine corpus, and you will discover in John chapter 5, Jesus says he does nothing op heal 2, of himself.

Here he says he did not come of himself. That does not mean he did not come voluntarily. Yes, he is sent by the

Father, he has the Father's authority, he is the one sent by him, no question about that. But how many times does

Jesus have to talk about the voluntariness of his coming for it to be found true?

We looked at it in Philippians 2, he made himself of no reputation. He humbled himself.

How clear can it be? We have to allow all of scripture to speak, we don't set scripture in contrast to scripture and say that it somehow is contradictory.

Now, it's interesting, in a previous debate, Mr. Perkins had, many times, had said, well, oidot means this, and gnosko means this.

Oidot means certain knowledge, gnosko means partial knowledge. Now he says, well, Vine says that frequently it can mean this, and I'm glad that I've had some positive effect upon Mr.

Perkins' knowledge of syntactical categories in the Greek language. Because the fact of the matter is, oidot and gnosko have overlapping syntactical categories, semantic meanings, and there are places where oidot does not mean full knowledge, and there are places where gnosko does.

That's simply the point that I was making. If Mr. Perkins would like to argue that, then

I would ask him to show me any of his lexical sources that say what he himself has said in the past, that oidot has this meaning, and gnosko has this meaning, and that they are different from one another, and that they are not semantically related.

It is said the Old Testament saints, if the trinity is true, the Old Testament saints did not know who they worshipped.

That is not true. God had revealed himself to them up to a certain point. But this, again, leads us to the exact same problem

I noted before. If you limit the New Testament revelation the way that Mr. Perkins is limiting and saying, no, no, no, we see

Unitarianism in the Old Testament, so that's what the New Testament has to be saying, then you've destroyed all the further revelation that comes out in regards to the very gospel itself.

For example, the Old Testament said that the Old Testament priesthood, the Levitical priesthood, is perpetual. It's eternal.

I can guarantee you there are no Levitical priests at Mr. Perkins' church. So if he's going to be consistent, he has to recognize that those

Old Testament paradigms must be seen in light of New Testament fulfillment. You don't make the

Old Testament something that this is the final revelation, and now there can be nothing more in the New Testament.

He doesn't do that in many areas of his worship and belief. Why does he do it in this area?

It's because of a specific tradition. We did hear a discussion in the book,

I think it was from Isaiah, where God talks about his hand. And in John chapter 10, why do the

Jews pick up stones to stone Jesus? Because he has said he gives eternal life to his people.

No one can snatch them out of his hand. The Father, who is greater than all, no one can snatch them out of his hand.

I and the Father, we are one. Plural verb, esmen, we are one, not

I is one. The whole point of the statement in John 10 and the comment that I made that was quoted in Partial by Mr.

Perkins was that the oneness spoken of is not a oneness of person. It is a oneness of purpose in the salvation of God's people, and that's where the evidence of the deity of Christ from that text even comes from.

Also, what I criticized Mr. Perkins for was standing before a group of people and upbraiding his opponent, saying, you don't even know what the

Greek term is, when the fact of the matter is, if he looked up heis in Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Donker, he looked it up under heis.

If he looked up hen, guess what he looked it under? Heis. If he looked up mia, what did he look it under? Mia. Every first -year

Greek student knows heis, mia, hen is the lexical form of the singular ordinal. That's how you learn it when you learn

Greek. That was the whole point of my raising those issues. When I talked about lexical abuse,

I'm not going to project it up here. I could if we wanted to, if we wanted to plug in and take the time to do that, but I could show you lexicons.

Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Donker is the current standard B -DAG now. They've changed it to second to third edition.

That lexicon is the standard edition. When you read it, it gives you multiple meanings depending upon usage.

It gives you a general meaning and then the lexicon, if it is a complete lexicon, will break down the meaning and apply the specific meanings in particular texts.

Many times what Mr. Perkins is doing is taking the general meaning, not even looking at how the lexicon actually applies its own interpretation and saying, ah, there it is.

My friends, when you study lexical semantics, you discover that every word has a meaning in its context.

If you're going to take a general meaning and cram it in there, then you better be prepared to look at syntax and verbal forms and everything else that comes along with it because that's what serious translation of the

Greek New Testament involves. He mentioned that I said, well, the masculine singer refers to personhood.

Yes, I was contrasting the fact that generally when the Greek uses a masculine term, it is referring to a person and when it uses a neuter term, it refers either to a group together or to some other concept.

I was discussing the general use of that. It is a valid term and I would defend that in my discussion of those particular texts.

Then we had long lists of people that say, well, they've translated this as one person. And if you looked, if you took the time to look, we're talking about Galatians 3 .20.

Now a mediator is not for one, whereas God is one. Now what does that mean?

A mediator is not for, and the New American Standard says, one party only, whereas God is only one.

And so what is being discussed there? Why would anyone be talking about this? He's talking about the fact that this idea of mediation involves two parties.

He's talking about mediation. He's not discussing the Godhead. He's not asserting Unitarianism. And I can guarantee you when it says, well, the

Amplified Bible says one person, I worked for the Lachman Foundation. We published it. I can guarantee you we're not

Unitarians. That's not what we intended to communicate by that translation. And my dad studied under Kenneth Wiest and I can guarantee you

Kenneth Wiest was a Trinitarian, not a Unitarian. All right. So what do we have then?

Let's refocus because we need to. Folks, what's the thesis? The thesis is, did the son exist as a divine person prior to his incarnation in Bethlehem?

What's the only place in the Bible that's going to give us certain knowledge of that, but the very text that addressed the relationship of the father and the son, which is in the

New Testament? Is the argument tonight, we can't look at Philippians 2, we can't look at John 1, we can't look at John 17 because the

Old Testament won't let us because we can't go past the Old Testament in our revelation of who God is.

Is that the argument this evening? I certainly hope not. And one of my disappointments right now is it would be difficult,

I would think, in 15 minutes for Mr. Perkins to even provide a meaningfully full exegesis of those three texts, which we must have.

I submit to you if the argument is, well, it can't mean what he said because of what I said. That is not a meaningful scholarly argument.

We need to hear that if all that is true, if using 9 ,000 singular pronouns means that Unitarianism is true rather than monotheism is true.

I say it means monotheism is true. If that's what it means, then we still need to know what these texts are about.

And it needs to come from a deep exegesis of the text. None of that has been touched as yet.

One of my favorite verses was cited, and that was Colossians 2, verse 9. For in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.

Beautiful, beautiful text. I believe it. But you see, I read it in its context. The context is an antinostic polemic.

And you see, before you ever get to Colossians 2, 9, you've already read Colossians 1. And Colossians 1 has already differentiated the son from the father.

And it has already told us that the son is divine, not a mere human being. It is said that we have been transferred into the kingdom of his son.

And then in describing the son, it says, by the son, all things are created, whether in heaven and earth, visible or invisible, principalities, powers, dominions, or authorities, all things created by him and for him.

And in him, all things they hold together. That's the son, folks.

And that was said before Colossians 2, 9. So you've got to allow that to happen.

How can the son be the one who created all things? Paul exhausts the Greek language.

He exhausts the number of prepositions he could use to say that Jesus is the creator.

And then when he says in Colossians 2, 9, for in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, is that making him the father?

Is that making him the spirit? No. What we believe is that each of the divine persons shares fully the one being that is

God. God's being can't be cut into parts. God's being is not a pie that's been cut into three pieces. And since the son truly is deity, the creator of all things, yet distinguished from the father, but since the son is truly deity, then we are not to be taken captive by empty philosophy, vain traditions.

He is to be the standard of all things because in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.

That would have been like scratching. This isn't a chalkboard, so it doesn't work anymore. But if that was a chalkboard,

I went back there and I ran my fingernails down. Those older people in the audience are going, oh, the younger people are going, what?

What's he doing? I don't understand. Colossians 2, 9 would be like pulling your fingers down a chalkboard to a

Gnostic because he's just said the pleroma, the fullness of that which makes

God, God deity dwelt bodily, not just dwelt, but is dwelling bodily in Jesus.

That's a present tense. And so I would like to ask Mr. Perkins a question. If that makes

Jesus the father and now Jesus is, now the deity is the spirit or however it is he understands that, this says that a time

Paul wrote this, all the fullness of deity is dwelling in Jesus bodily.

Is that union still there or has the father become the spirit and is now dwelling us? I don't know. I'll leave that to Mr.

Perkins to respond to. Let's listen if we get full exegesis of those key texts in the next 15 minutes.

Thank you for your attention. Thank you,

Dr. White. To respond to those challenges and to attack the affirmative position, let's welcome once again

Mr. Roger Perkins. Now I would first like to say tonight that I've been accused of not interacting with the text, none whatsoever.

We had already agreed that we were going to state our definitive positions. We were going to clearly identify our positions and I was asked to do that by Mr.

Ireland, so I was only doing what we were told to do. I have got every one of his arguments that he has brought up right here and many of them that he hadn't brought up from an exegetical standpoint.

So it's really a moot point to accuse me of not, basically accuse me of dodging his issue.

I'm not going to dodge nothing. I'm not scared of one verse he brings up here. Now he said to us that according to Mr.

Perkins we can't limit God's revelation and if that's the case then why did Jesus come?

Well I'll tell you why, because Jesus in the Old Testament said that your God will come. He didn't say a second person in the

Trinity is going to come. He said your God will come and that's exactly what happened. The one

God came. The father, first person, and the third person didn't love a humanity enough that he ordered the second person to go down and be beat and spit upon.

The one Old Testament God came. He said we should apply that Mr. Perkins' hermeneutic to the book of Revelation, excuse me, to the book of Hebrews.

Well exactly, the book of Hebrews quotes the Old Testament more than any other except for Matthew I think.

Quotes the book of the Old Testament more than any other of the epistles and what I am saying is that he is offering a radical alteration of 9 ,000 singular personal pronouns in the in the

Old Testament that when we come to the New Testament but then he applies that and says God the Father speaks with a singular personal pronoun.

So that's one person. He speaks to God the Son. The Son speaks to him. They each use singular personal pronouns which would necessitate one person.

I'm just asking him to be consistent and apply the same hermeneutic to 70 % of the

Bible, 4 ,000 years of Hebrew Revelation, and them that knew God on most intimate terms and when he does the

Trinitarian position is collapsed. He said I believe in personal pronouns. Well I hope he does. I hope he believes in 9 ,000 of them where God said

I am all alone and I'm by myself. I created all things all alone. He says well why was

Psalms 2 and Isaiah 53 mentioned if that were the case? Well they were prophetical.

He said he finds the Son, excuse me, in Psalm 2 and in Isaiah 53 and you certainly do.

You find him prophesied to come but you don't find it which we we know that but you don't find the

Father and the Son interacting now do you under the Old Testament which is very strange that God the

Father and God the Son two eternal persons in a trinity that no one knew existed for 4 ,000 years and they had absolutely no interaction whatsoever.

He says that you can't cut God into parts but yet he just told us that one Yahweh walked on the earth and he rained fire from another

Yahweh in heaven but he said we can't cut God into parts. Hero Israel the Lord our God is one

Yahweh. So how many Yahwehs do we have now ladies and gentlemen? If you've got one standing on the earth commanding the other to rain down finally where the third one's at but if you've got three that are all separate separated don't tell me we're not cutting

God being into parts we certainly are. He says where's the language of a human mind well that'd be

Philippians chapter 2. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus the historical

Messiah. Almost every time you see those two together Christ Jesus it is a reference to the historical

Messiah. Philippians chapter 2 has absolutely nothing to do with the second person in an imaginary trinity that no one knew existed for 4 ,000 years and I will be glad to deal with that in the cross -examination time.

I'll get to it right here in a minute if I can but he says that God was revealed up to a certain point in the

Old Testament yet they knew him on the most intimate terms that there possibly was. He spoke with personal pronouns what he said to Moses he said to Aaron and to Miriam rather.

I speak to Moses as a man mouth to mouth. What does that tell you?

If I say I'm speaking to you right now with one mouth how many persons am I ladies and gentlemen? Nobody would say that I am three persons and God said

I'm speaking to Moses mouth to mouth one mouth speaking mouth to mouth. He said that Oida he derided me for Oida and said that I have had he's had a glad he's had an impact on me with the syntactical value of the

Greek New Testament. Well he has and in fact he has me I mean more solidified now that the one's position is right than I was before I started listening to him so he's helped me a lot.

But he says that you know he derides me for Oida. Well he needs to deal with Mr. Vines. I didn't say that.

We didn't hear one thing about Vine did we? Sure didn't. I quoted you from Dr. Vine W .E. Vine. He can argue Dr. W .E.

Vine. I didn't say that I just read it. And so he tells us well I wonder if there's any Levitical priests in Mr.

Perkins's church today. Well absolutely not because the Levitical priests are not the identity of God.

We're talking about the very identity of who God was. He's telling us Moses and all them just only knew him up to a certain point you know

God just only revealed up to a certain point yet they knew him on the most intimate level. They knew him face to face.

Jacob wrestled with him uh face to face and so forth. Now he says that um he says that that I think he's saying that Galatians 3 20 is not asserting

Unitarianism. Turn there for yourself in the Amplified Bible. Go home and don't take my word for it.

You read it for yourself. It says God is one person.

He says the context. I know the context. I've read it quite well before I got up here tonight and the context does absolutely nothing to damage that point whatsoever.

He says that his dad studied under Kenneth Weiss and Kenneth Weiss was a Trinitarian. I know every one of these are

Trinitarians except for Thayer but yet he has no problem quoting Thayer when he wants to quote Thayer and guess what folks?

Thayer was a Unitarian. So it works for him when he wants to do it but when I do it I get in trouble. So I'm going to ask you for consistency tonight.

Um and so he says that uh Colossians he Paul said Colossians 1 before he said Colossians 2 and 9 so now he raised up one scripture against another.

Now it's over Paul says this so you can't mean this over in Colossians 2 and 9. No that's not the way we do hermeneutics ladies and gentlemen. We harmonize scripture together and when it says for in Christ dwells all the fullness of the

Godhead again I'm asking you is it normal to read Colossians 2 and 9 Jesus second person in the trinity?

Absolutely not that is not the normative understanding of the passage. Now um well let me deal real quickly with John 17 before I get accused of ignoring it but in John 17 he said this he said in John 17 3 and I've got three pages on it tonight

I'll never get to it all I know that but he says that any normative understanding of John 17 would not denote a plan as he said

I don't know that we would just say oh it's only a plan uh and so forth I think that he should allow me to speak for myself which which

I'm going to do here but let's talk about any normative language ladies and gentlemen who would read John 17 and 3 where it says and now get the picture coming from God the son and now oh father now father the hour has come and then he says in verse 3 that they may know you father the only monos true

God now who talk about normal understanding and normal language who's going to read that and say well you know what

Jesus is the second co -equal person in the trinity nobody so I hope he will allow normal understandings to to stand we certainly do then he says

Jesus is distinguished from the father we know that it does no good to quote and say that Jesus is distinguished from the father we we believe that but in John chapter 8 and verse 40 ladies and gentlemen same book of John that we're reading right here

Jesus tells us what the distinction is he says you hate me a man who has heard from God you hate me a man because I heard from God he qualifies who the me and the

I were a man who heard from God someone other than me and so we believe in the distinctions well between the father and the son we believe that the son is the one old testament

God in his human existence he's still God but he's got a certain aspect of God a certain role of God he is

God in his human existence ladies and gentlemen and Mr. White told me uh derided me on the dividing line and he said when

Jesus speaks it is the entire person of Jesus speaking not just a part of person a part of Jesus but his entire person not just as humanity or just his deity but the whole person that's speaking

I hope he's going to stick to that in verse 5 because when Jesus said now oh father glorify thou me with the glory

I had does that include his humanity or now we're going to split Jesus and say he's only talking about his deity and wasn't talking about his humanity there

I hope he'll stick to the same criteria that he's accused me of he's accused me of splitting Jesus and me of having a schizophrenic

Jesus and yet I would ask him to stick to his own criteria and in verse 5 was that the whole person speaking still was that still the whole his whole humanity his whole deity everything or was it just a pre -existent divinity now we're stripping him of his humanity which is the very thing he charges me with he says that we would have to wrestle it with grossly unnatural words in John 17 to come up with the oneness position yet he takes 9 ,000 singular personal pronouns and said this is really three persons of the

Godhead but he tells me I'm the one who's applying a grossly unnatural interpretation he says that Yahweh says that he does not share his glory with none other he certainly did and he used a singular personal pronoun when he did it one person said

I don't share my glory with no one else but see in the Old Testament it's an assumption when you read a singular personal pronoun and that's just we assume that that's one person when it's really one being but then in the

New Testament the criteria shifts and whenever they use singular personal pronouns then all of a sudden hey we got the trinity there but when we apply it to the

Old Testament it don't work you see I'm just asking for consistency and as Mr. White says over and over inconsistency is a sure sign of a failed argument now he said that in John 1 and 1 and I have more here with John 17 but I want to at least just hit them a little bit real quickly he said in John 7 and John 1 and 1 that we have

God the Father God the Son did you hear it face to face so in eternity we his words not mine in eternity we've got

God the Father and God the Son facing each other yet we're told you can't divide God and yet they're facing one another and no one knew a thing about it for 4 ,000 years no one knew one thing but God the

Son God the Father facing each other I don't know what God the Holy Spirit's doing but but he's got the two person in the Godhead facing each other he asked in Hebrews uh chapter 10 who is the me and then he went on to say when it says that uh body have you prepared for me he said who is it he said this is the pre -incarnate really well then let's keep reading and in the next verse where it says that he had a

God he says oh God yet you can read Psalm 22 and 10 and it says that you have been my

God some messianical prophecy and it says you have been my God from my mother's womb yet Mr. White tells us that's pre -incarnate so it's pre -incarnate and God the

Son had a God in his pre -incarnate condition doesn't work um now let me get very quickly to the the john 10 and 30 we hear a lot from my honorable opponent that because he used the plural

I and my father are one and he used the plural verb esmen and so Mr. White tells us that that's a plurality of persons and and and that that would you know that that would be the normal understanding of a plural verb would be a plural subject but I hope he applies that in revelations 21 and 22 because revelations 21 and 22 denotes the father and the son and it uses a singular verb to describe the father and the son so if a plural verb applied to the father and the son denotes a plurality of persons

I just wanted to be consistent and use the same criteria in revelation 21 and 22 when it speaks of God and the lamb and then it says are its temple and or is its temple and it is a singular verb applied to God and the lamb so I hope you'll deal with that now in Isaiah my opponent brought up Isaiah 9 and 6

Isaiah 9 and 6 is very interesting indeed Isaiah 9 and 6 says unto us a son is born and a child is given then it gives the attributes of the name and it says wonderful counselor the mighty

God the eternal father now he again derided me on the on the dividing line and said well the definite article is not there

I know the definite article is not there but the construction is definitive I ask you again we talk about natural readings who would read

Isaiah 9 and 6 where it says Jesus is the eternal father the the the mighty God and say well he's second person in the trinity absolutely no one whatsoever

I submit tonight that trinitarianism is a forced interpretation and a gross misrepresentation of the text thank you so much for your time

God bless you thank you for that Roger it's now time for our scheduled break

I'll pass over to Craig Ireland to give you the details thank you very much so we're about to get back underway if anyone outside can make their way back in real quick we're going to jump back into it and I'll hand over to our debate moderator

Craig Zaki who will introduce the next segment to us thank you very much thank you

Craig now as we said before the break the two opponents will get one more round of rebuttals and that is where they speak independently and attack and defend their case from the other party and after that you can imagine it's going to get very interesting because our two speakers will get the chance in the cross examination to address each other directly that's where my job starts to get hard as well

I can see we're building up quite a interesting clash and that's what a debate is all about getting the clash having the two opinions very clearly defined so that you and I and all of us can see how they're going to interact so this round of rebuttals is seven minutes per speaker and I'll invite

Dr James White to speak in his rebuttal for the affirmative side that's where I can welcome seven minutes is a very very short period of time except for Mr Perkins while I'm up here then it's a very long period of time and his seven minutes for me as well let's jump immediately into John chapter 17 he accused me of inconsistency and he said well

Mr White are you going to be consistent because in John 17 5 Jesus said father glorify me together yourself with the glory which

I had with you before the world was isn't that the whole Jesus speaking you're inconsistent one little problem before the world was was

Jesus incarnate is it not our belief that the incarnation took place in time and that the human nature of Jesus was not eternal so who's the only one who can be speaking this way a divine person referring to a pre incarnate time when he and the father were in relationship with one another that has not been touched have you noticed that folks the exegesis of my presentation has not yet been touched and so I would suggest that if Mr Perkins thinks that I'm being inconsistent on the basis of John 17 5

I'm just gonna tell him he's dreaming I'll just allow the Aussies in the audience to figure that one out

Isaiah 44 24 was cited one of my favorite texts were where Yahweh alone and by himself creates all things and yet in the

New Testament the father is involved in creation the son is involved in creation

Colossians chapter 1 verses 16 through 17 all things are created by him and for him he is before all things in him all things hold together so what must we do we must see that the oneness of Isaiah 44 24 is monotheism and in light of the

New Testament we recognize the distinction of the persons that's called the historic Christian doctrine of the trinity you don't throw out the one because of your insistence to say that the other involves some form of Unitarianism we were told that Philippians 2 has nothing to do with an imaginary trinity we have yet to be given any exegesis of Philippians chapter 2 at all nothing

I'm expecting again to speak to the Aussies in the audience Mr Perkins to grab his bible and go it's just the vibe of the thing we need exegesis we need something more than well it doesn't have anything to do with the trinity okay

I spent five minutes illustrating the fact from the Greek text that this is a pre -incarnate individual speaking of pre -incarnate actions and we get well it has nothing to do with the trinity that is not how a debate is to be run we were asked well

Dr White's cutting God into parts he he talked about one Yahweh raining fire from another Yahweh how's that not two

Yahweh's well first of all Yahweh is unlimited and he is omnipresent and he can take human form without ceasing to be omnipresent and the fact matter is

I was just quoting Genesis 18 Yahweh rain fire and brimstone from Yahweh on Sodom and Gomorrah the one

Yahweh was walking with Abraham you tell me what's going on there to say well that just can't be because it what violates my tradition well tonight we are examining traditions to see if they are actually valid we said we didn't hear one thing about Dr.

Vine from Dr. White well Mr. Perkins wasn't listening very carefully because I directly addressed it and I pointed out that Vine says predominantly or or freak

I think the term was frequently that means not always and Mr. Perkins had misdefined the terms before whether he wants to admit that or not is up to him it's not a conflict between me and anything that Vines was saying then he went again evidently we can we can quote the

Amplified Bible published by the Lachman Foundation and Mr. Perkins knows what the

Amplified Bible means it's teaching Unitarianism I'm a critical consultant for the Lachman Foundation and I tell you it's not now who has the authority to speak in that particular instance the fact of the matter is the context is mediation it is not talking about the

Godhead or Unitarianism or anything of its kind this is a misuse of the text in toto we had just a few brief comments made about John chapter 17 and he says well who's this one true

God well there's only one true God and if the son the incarnate son is going to address the father what's he going to address him as one of many gods now all of a sudden we believe in polytheism in no way shape or form

Jesus then goes on to say that it's eternal life to know the father and the son and then he says that he was glorious in the presence of the father before the world was we still have not received an exegesis of John chapter 17 verse 5 either and then there is a brief mention of John chapter 10 but no answer to the question that was given who is it that says a body when he comes into the world a body you have prepared for me who's the me and who's the one that prepared the body if this is the son speaking to the father he has to place this after the incarnation yet the whole point of the text is opposite to that it shows once again idealized plans do not speak have you noticed we have not had a positive presentation yet this evening as to who

Jesus really is well he's the one one god of the old testament incarnate what does that mean well he's the father and he's the son but the son is just a human being and the son was not eternal and so can a non -eternal human nature that was once just a plan speak as the

Jesus of the bible speaks that's the question that we have to ask but unfortunately given that Mr.

Perkins now only has seven minutes I don't think we're going to get an exegesis of Philippians 2 an exegesis of John 17 5 or an exegesis of John 1 1 that will be able to adequately address the issues that have been raised but we can hope because it's his turn next thank you for your attention let's welcome back

Mr. Perkins to respond for his last seven minutes of rebuttals let's make him welcome ladies and gentlemen thank you ladies gentlemen glad to be back here tonight um now

Mr. White has said to me tonight just now that in John 17 5 that it is divine persons speaking prior to the incarnation and then tells me

I'm the one dreaming and yet you don't find those divine eternal persons in 70 of the bible and I'm the dreamer now

I'm not the dreamer ladies and gentlemen and I have exegesis of John 17 5 I have

Philippians 2 right here I have John 1 18 I have John 1 1 I have tons of it right here

I just really in the last one didn't get a chance to get to it when I started getting to it my time was coming running up now in Isaiah 44 24 one singular person using singular personal by the way reflexive pronoun

I by myself created all things alone and by myself one singular person says this using a singular personal pronoun which is the same criteria that he uses to come up with his trinity doctrine in the new testament he says well singular personal pronouns indicates singular persons well let's just apply that to Isaiah 44 and 24

I created all things alone and by myself and then he said the historic christian doctrine of the trinity has always understood that to mean thus and thus no the trinitarians have always understood it to mean that that presupposes that the trinitarians are christian that they're orthodox christianity and that's what he says over and over again that the orthodox christians no trinitarians believe that so we need to define our terms very closely he says that uh speaking of Yahweh in the one

Yahweh rain fire from another Yahweh he says that Yahweh is omnipresent well

I hope you remember that when he starts telling us that one omnipresent person sent another omnipresent person how can omnipresence be sent anywhere

I would like for him to define omnipresence at some point tonight omnipresence is not sent anywhere ladies and gentlemen omnipresence is already there so he has three divine persons each of whom one of each of whom are not the other one's not the other god the father is not god the son god the son is not god the holy spirit each are omnipresent no one knew a thing about it for four thousand years 70 of the bible and I'm the joseph doing the dreaming

I'm not the dreamer ladies and gentlemen now he says that the context of Galatians 3 20 is mediation

I'm of course wonder of wonders I'm just abusing it again I'm just misusing another source every time

I quote a source he's abusing it but yet he can quote 75 lexicons in his books 75 sources in the same manner that I quote them

I'm quoting them just like he quotes them I'm quoting the same ones and I've got molten and sitting right there that he abused and I'll gladly you just come see me after this

I'll gladly show you his quotation where he has it in quotes that we need to go look up molten and milligan on page so and so that it says this and you go look it up I went and looked it up it doesn't say one thing about that and he tells me

I'm the one abusing the lexicons um now in fact he tells us that the primary issues is did the divine did the son exist as a divine person prior to the incarnation so Mr.

White is the authoritarian on what is the primary issue and what's not see he sets the pattern of what's the primary issue and what's not we're all supposed to bow down to that well

I'll tell you what's the what the primary issue is the primary issue is is there a three -minded god that no one knew existed for four thousand years now that's not a primary issue

I don't know what he is in fact just in case I am accused of misrepresenting him um and Mr.

White says there's no way that we can separate and we can flesh out that he says no we can separate the being of God uh

Mr. Sound man would you play that track for me soundbite number one please this is Mr. White's own statement no way to separate the father from the son hold on you're getting ahead of me no way to separate the father from the son ladies and gentlemen that's what

Mr. White just said okay soundbite number two please number two that's just number one that's the first one

I'll second one I'll quote it yeah

I'll quote it on his oneness podcast then on segment three around the eight minute mark he says this the father and son are separate divine persons and I have that right over there yeah he just told us nobody separate them out but then he turns around says they're separate divine persons on page 170 of the forgotten trinity

Mr. White says he's trying to avoid the idea of separate individuals yet that third clip up there

Mr. White says the son is an individual who existed from eternity eternally with the father on his ancient heresies 26 25 mark he says the father and son are distinguishable individuals so we got

God the father who's an individual God the son who's an individual God the Holy Spirit who's an individual each is fully

God but one is not the other each has their own separate center of consciousness each has their own mind he said uh two weeks ago

October 7th I think it was that I assume that they only have one center of consciousness and there's only one center of consciousness in God which means he holds to more than one center of consciousness in God and you're going to tell me you've got one

God still absolutely not it is conceptual tritheism now um ladies and gentlemen of course my

I don't I don't have the time here but I will deal with Philippians 2 in the cross -examination I feel like it's going to come up but uh he says um

I'll just tell you this lady on page 171 of his book Mr. White says the father is not the son nor is the son the

Holy Spirit each are fully and completely God so God the father is not

God the son who is not God the Holy Spirit each are fully God each are divine individuals none of the 23 ,145 verses of the

Old Testament know this God's Old Testament covenant people never knew one thing about a three -minded

God when we put my opponent's statements together we're told that God the father is one separate individual who is not

God the son who is one separate another separate individual who is not God the Holy Spirit who is another separate individual apparently each divine individual can communicate with each other as human beings none of God's people knew about this for 7 ,000 years then when we turn to the

New Testament we have the testimony of the New Testament writers that just says Jesus is the same one

God we've been reading about the whole time manifest in the flesh that is who Jesus is he is

God manifest in the flesh not a second of three divine persons that no one knew existed thank you well ladies and gentlemen we've now heard the substantive arguments from the affirmative and the negative and our two speakers have had a chance to formally defend their position and attack one another in the relative safety of the wooden podium in the front i think you'll understand and feel that at this point it's important for us to get our our speakers talking to one another we seem to have come to a point in the debate where the affirmative is arguing that truth can be discovered by a close exegesis of the