The Trinity

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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 adorning 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 onto 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 U .S. 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. 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 am 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, en morphe theu hu parcone, 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, it'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 under 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 for 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 person, that equality he had with God the Father is 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 consider 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 likeness of men at the Incarnation, not at a time later in his ministry.

Therefore, this passage teaches the deity of Christ, he existed 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'll need to look at, 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's 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's praying, then it's 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 the 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 pre-existence. 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 pre-existence, 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, in Archaean Halagos, the term ein is the imperfect form of I, 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, kaitheas ein halagos, the os, 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 monogamous theos, 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 monogamous theos, 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 chapter 10, verse 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. All right? 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 chapter 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, 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's just a human being, and the Father's 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.

And 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 percent 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.

It's 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 Sola 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 alluded back to. The New Testament writers' writings were corne 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.