The Doctrine of the Trinity (Part 2)

“He [Jesus]  said to them, But who do you say I am?  And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.  Jesus answered and said to him, You are blessed, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but My Father in Heaven.”

As with Peter, this is a revelation recently given to me as well from God the Father concerning His Son.  The only way I can describe it is that the light bulb did not give off any light until I saw the light.  As long as I was defending and believing in the Trinity doctrine, that revelation was hidden from me.  God the Father will not talk until we are ready to listen. As I said before, this is new for me and I am not yet well equipped to answer all the objections.  All I can do is study and lean on the holy Spirit to guide me into all truth as promised he will do.

If we take these words
at face value, Jesus (Yeshua) is the Son of God, not God (Yahweh)  Yes, it’s understandable that probably a whole number of verses are flying through your mind at the moment, just as it did mine, because most of the readers, as I, have been taught nothing but the Trinity doctrine.  But please read Peter’s response again above.  Jesus (Yeshua) is called the “Son of God.”

Getting back to the foundation of our belief.
Monotheistic Tradition

I must get back to the foundation.  “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Ps. 11:3)

The saints of the Old Covenant were strictly monotheistic. The monotheistic tradition continued and Jesus did not change it.

Jesus, our Apostle, had only one creed about God our Father and I would rather appeal to his creed than the Athanasian creed which says in a nutshell,

“Whoever wants to be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic [universal] faith; which faith unless everyone keeps it whole and undefiled, without doubt he will perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance…The Father eternal, the Son eternal and the Holy Spirit eternal, and they are not three eternals but one eternal…So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty. And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord and the Holy Spirit Lord; and yet they are not three Lords but one Lord. For just as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the catholic religion to say there are three Gods or three Lords….And in this Trinity none is before or after another; none is greater or less than another. But the whole three persons are coeternal and coequal. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped. He who wants to be saved must thus think of the Trinity.”

I cannot see Jesus subscribing to this creed or the Nicene, but only that creed which has been taught throughout Scripture. He, too, would come under the cruel anathemas of this “Christian” creed, just as others.

Jesus affirmed the creed of Israel, that there is only one God. The Old Testament is strictly monotheistic. God is a single personal being.

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God. “

Even Paul, a Jew of all Jews, says,

There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Messiah Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5)

But that is not enough for Christianity.

Are we obeying Jesus’ commandments?  Jesus has a right to tell us who God is and we should not ignore Jesus’ understanding of monotheism. Jesus never demonstrated a new creed of defining who God is. We must appeal to the creed of Jesus (Yeshua), concerning the “first commandment,”

Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. (Mark 12:29)

John 17:3 records Jesus’ own strict monotheism. He declared that,

You, Father, are the only one who is truly God.

Jesus never taught that he is God.  Are we going to believe what Jesus said?  Instead of believing what Jesus taught so we can all speak the same thing (1 Cor. 1:10), it has led to years of confusion, conflict, and a war on words because we have read Scriptures through the filter of the Trinity teaching that was not taught at the time of Christ, but came 300-400 years later.

We must go back to Monotheistic Tradition as taught throughout Scripture.  I don’t know about you, but I would rather put my faith in the words of God as my foundation rather than on Statements of Faith based on creeds formed centuries later.

Jesus (Yeshua) is not God (Yahweh).  Listen to what Jesus says VERY carefully,

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

This is the SON OF GOD praying to HIS FATHER.  These are the words of Jesus himself.  Dare we not agree with him?  Man has to come up with a lot of philosophical explanations, pictures, and have us do a lot of mindless gymnastics as they try to explain the Trinity in order for us to have some kind of understanding about it.  And if we don’t understand it, just accept it “by faith,” so we are told. But God forbid if you reject it!

So far the words of Peter and Jesus are so simple. Jesus (Yeshua) did not do away with the Monotheistic doctrine and change it into a Trinitarian doctrine.

Let’s heed Paul’s warning:

If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ AND the teaching that accords with godliness, he has an over-high opinion of himself; being without knowledge, having only an unhealthy love of questionings and wars of words, from which come envy, fighting, cruel words, evil thoughts. (1 Tim. 6:3)

I encourage that we search the Scriptures for ourselves rather than run to just about every commentary that interprets Scripture through the filter of the Trinity doctrine.  As someone who aptly  stated:

“It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. It is better to speak the truth that hurts, and then heals, than falsehood that comforts, then kills. It is not love, and it is not friendship, if we fail do declare the whole counsel of God. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than to be loved for telling a lie. It is impossible to find anyone in the Bible who was a power for God who did not have enemies and was not hated. It’s better to stand alone with the truth than to be wrong with a multitude. It is better ultimately to succeed with truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie.”

Rely on the holy Spirit who will guide us into all truth.

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” (John 14:26)