Religious Studies Talk

Carl · Guest

In the following scholarly article, Rob Bowman explains the errors in
Oneness Pentecostalism (which adheres to a form of modalism, an unBiblical
doctrine) in regards to the Biblical doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

May God bless,
Carl
my website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
my blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/

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Oneness Pentecostalism And The Trinity: A Biblical Critique
by Robert M. Bowman, Jr.

An astonishing number of professing Christians today reject the doctrine of
the Trinity. There are obvious examples of this, like the Mormons and the
Jehovah's Witnesses. Then there are the "Christian" liberals who reject the
Trinity along with the Incarnation as myths. Evangelicals generally have no
trouble identifying such movements as heretical, since in each case they
deny the deity of Christ.

Recently, though, anti-Trinitarianism has emerged in yet another form, that
of Oneness Pentecostalism.1 The movement began in 1913 and has grown quickly
since then to over four million worldwide,2 making it the second-largest
anti-Trinitarian movement. (Mormonism is the largest with over eleven
million.)

What sets Oneness Pentecostalism apart from other anti-Trinitarian heresies
is its seeming orthodoxy. Unlike Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, for
example, Oneness Pentecostals teach both that there is one God and that
Jesus is fully God. For this reason, many Christians have difficulty seeing
anything wrong with the Oneness position. Moreover, unlike Mormonism and
similar sects, Oneness Pentecostals make no appeal whatsoever to
extrabiblical literature or modern leaders for authoritative interpretations
of Scripture. Compared to many other controversial sects, Oneness
Pentecostalism appears quite orthodox in many respects.

If the Oneness doctrine is heretical, then, it must be admitted to be a
much subtler error than that of many current heresies. Subtlety does not,
however, make an error less dangerous, but more, since the subtler the error
the more people are likely to fall for it (people are more apt to accept a
criminal's counterfeit bills as real money than they are Monopoly bills).
This potential danger makes it all the more important that the Oneness
teaching be evaluated on the basis of Scripture.

Historically, the Oneness doctrine is akin to an ancient heresy, popular in
the late second and third centuries, known as monarchianism. The term
monarchianism (from monos, "one," and archon, "ruler") refers to the
doctrine that God is a solitary ruler of the world. The monarchians
explained the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three revelations,
manifestations, or offices of the one divine Person. Monarchianism waned due
to its own lack of biblical and theological cogency; by the fourth century,
when the Council of Nicea met, the heresy of note was Arianism, a doctrine
that viewed Christ as a secondary God under the Father.

DEFINITIONS

The Oneness position is "the doctrine that God is absolutely one in
numerical value, that Jesus is the one God, and that God is not a plurality
of persons."3 God is generally said to be neither one "person" nor three, on
the assumption that the term "person" is applicable only to individual human
beings; the incarnate Jesus, though, is agreed to be one person.4 The
Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three "manifestations" of the one God, who
is not, though, limited to these three manifestations.5 Because almost all
Oneness groups hold to the Pentecostal doctrine that receiving the Holy
Spirit is evidenced initially by speaking in tongues, these groups are
generally called "Oneness Pentecostals." Oneness believers usually reject
the nickname "Jesus Only," feeling that it implies a rejection of belief in
the Father.6 However, the name derives from their insistence that baptism is
to be administered "in the name of Jesus only."

The doctrine of the Trinity was concisely stated by the Westminster
Confession of Faith (1647): "In the unity of the Godhead there be three
persons (personae), of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost."7 Thus, the Trinity is understood to be
one God, yet three "persons." The Athanasian Creed explicitly rejects
tritheism (belief in three Gods), stating that "they are not three Gods: but
one God."8 Despite this fact, Oneness believers, along with Jews, Muslims,
Jehovah's Witnesses, and others, condemn the Trinity as tritheism.9

The principal reason for this misinterpretation is a faulty understanding
of the term "person." Its long and fascinating history cannot be traced
here.10 The first theologian to use it of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
was Tertullian (circa A.D. 200), who borrowed the term in its legal sense of
"a party to a legal action" and used it in a relational context, while
insisting that the three 'personae' were one God.11 To speak of three
eternal persons in this sense is to recognize relationships among the Three
that transcend manifestations in history. That is, each person is a
self-aware subject who relates to each of the other two as "another." In our
finite world, we are used to encountering only finite beings, and every
person we meet is an entity separate from all other persons. However, God is
not finite, so it may be that as an infinite being He exists as three
distinguishable persons, while remaining one indivisible essence. Neither
can the term "person" be restricted to human beings, since angels are
self-aware subjects also. Whether God is three persons cannot be determined
by reasoning alone, but only by examining God's revelation of Himself in
Scripture.

IS GOD ONE PERSON?

The Bible repeatedly asserts that God is one. He is one God (James 2:19)
and one Yahweh or Jehovah (Deuteronomy 6:4). The first plank in the
Trinitarian platform is the indivisible oneness of God. However, nowhere in
Scripture are we ever told that God is one person.

It is sometimes argued that the use of echad ("one") in Deuteronomy 6:4
indicates that God is a composite unity. That is not quite accurate, since
"composite" speaks of a uniting together of parts into a whole, whereas the
three Persons are not three "parts" or three "thirds" of God. Nor is it true
that echad necessarily indicates some sort of inner plurality. Like its
Greek counterpart heis in the New Testament, echad is simply the common
Hebrew word for "one." However, like both heis and "one," echad does not
necessarily imply absolute, unqualified and undifferentiated unity. Rather,
the word "one" in any language can only indicate unity as unity, whether
that unity is in some sense differentiated or not must be determined by
other factors.

For example, to say that a certain biological entity is "one organism" says
nothing about whether it is unicellular (e.g., an amoeba) or multicellular
(e.g., a man). It may be one organism in one cell or one organism in many
cells. In a logically analogous manner, God might be one God in one person
or one God in three persons. Of course, if God is three persons, these
"three" cannot be three parts (as cells are parts of an organism). Since God
is an infinite being, He cannot be composed of parts in any case. Yet it may
be that He exists as a kind of differentiated infinite unity that is
'triune' (three in one) though not 'triplex' (three in parts). Since this is
the infinite God we are talking about, there will be no corresponding or
analogous instance of "triunity" or trinity in nature. We must be careful,
then, not to beg the question by assuming that the unity of the Deity will
be the same sort of unity as we find in the finite world.

IS JESUS THE FATHER?

According to Oneness theology, the term Father designates Christ's deity,
while Son designates either His humanity considered separately or His deity
as manifested in the flesh. Therefore, while Oneness believers say that the
Father is not the Son, they do hold that Jesus is both the Father and the
Son.

The most common prooftext used to prove that Jesus is the Father is Isaiah
9:6, which gives Christ the name "Everlasting Father," or rather, "Father of
eternity" (as Oneness writers admit).12 The use of "Father" here supposedly
identifies Jesus as the "God the Father" of the New Testament. However, this
is not the case. A number of proper names in the Old Testament use the term
'ab "in accordance with a custom usual in Hebrew and in Arabic, where he who
possesses a thing is called the father of it."13 Thus Abiathon (2 Samuel
23:31), "father of strength," means "strong"; Abiaseph (Exodus 6:24),
"father of gathering," means "gatherer"; Abigail (1 Chronicles 2:16),
"father of exultation," is a woman's name meaning "exulting"; and so
forth.14 Evidently, then, "Father of eternity" in Isaiah 9:6 means that
Jesus is eternal. This would imply, of course, that He is the creator of the
ages (cf. Hebrews 1:2; 11:3), but not that He is "the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians1:3).

In John 10:30, Jesus stated, "I and the Father are one." Oneness believers
erroneously understand this to mean that they are one person. As is often
pointed out, such an interpretation is guarded against by the use of the
neuter hen rather than the masculine heis for "one," thereby suggesting
essential unity but not absolute identity.15 Also precluding a one-person
interpretation is the first-person plural "we are" (esmen). If Jesus were
the Father, He could have said, "I am the Father," or "the Son and the
Father are one (heis)," or some other equivalent; but as it stands, John
10:30 excludes monarchianism and Oneness as surely as it excludes Arianism.

Another such prooftext is John 5:43, where Jesus rebukes the Jews: "I have
come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his
own name, you will receive him." Oneness writers consistently interpret "in
My Father's name" as meaning that Jesus' name is the Father's name (i.e.,
Jesus is the Father).16 However, the expression "in the name of" here
clearly means "in the authority of"; thus the person whom Jesus warned would
come "in his own name" will come with "no credentials but his own claim."17
To receive someone who comes "in his own name" is therefore, according to
Jesus, a foolish act. This contrast between "My Father's name" and "his own
name" proves beyond question that Jesus did not come "in his own name."
Therefore, "Jesus" is not the Father's name, and so Jesus is not the Father.
Ironically, then, this is one of the clear prooftexts against the Oneness
doctrine that Jesus is the Father.

Also cited to prove that Jesus' name is the Father's name (and therefore
that Jesus is the Father) is John 17:6, 11-12. Oneness writers emphasize
that Jesus "manifested" the Father's name, and that the Father "gave" His
name to Jesus, as evidence that Jesus is the Father. This interpretation
overlooks the fact that a human father can give his name to his son, without
the father and son being one person! Moreover, notice that Jesus said twice
that His disciples were "in Thy the Father's name." If we interpret this
phrase in the sense that the Oneness believers assign to it in John 5:43, we
come to the ridiculous conclusion that the disciples are the Father! The
Oneness interpretation simply does not work. Since, as even Oneness writers
acknowledge, God's "name" represents His character and His power,18 and
since in the context Jesus is asking the Father to keep the disciples holy
and united (17:11-12, 15-23), it is apparent that Jesus is saying that He
possessed and manifested the character and power of the Father.

A favorite passage of monarchians in the ancient church and of Oneness
Pentecostals today is John 14:9, where Jesus says, "He who has seen Me has
seen the Father." The error here is simply that of not reading a statement
in context. Jesus has just asserted, "No one comes to the Father except
through Me" (v. 6). The natural sense of these words is that Jesus is, not
the Father, but a mediator between us and the Father. Then He states, "If
you had known Me, you would have known My Father also" (v. 7a). This is
true, not because Jesus is the Father, but because those who know Jesus are
led by Him to know the Father as they see Him imaged perfectly in Jesus.
Thus, says Jesus, "from now on you know Him, and have seen Him" (v. 7b).
Existing with the Father as the one indivisible Divine Being, Jesus can say,
"He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (v. 9). Nevertheless, Jesus does
not say, "I am the Father," but rather, "I am in the Father and the Father
is in Me" (v.10, repeated in v.11; cf.10:3 Cool

. Oneness believers frequently
cite the second part of this last statement, "the Father is in Me," to mean
that the deity ("Father") dwells in the humanity ("Son") of Jesus. This
view, however, fails to explain the first part of the sentence, "I am in the
Father," which in Oneness terms would have to mean that the human nature of
Jesus dwells in the deity-the opposite of what they believe. Moreover, it
fails to account for the fact that in this same context, as well as
elsewhere, Jesus uses this sort of expression to denote His unity with
believers: "In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in
Me, and I in you" (v.20; cf.17:21-23).

JESUS IS GOD

Trinitarians affirm that Jesus Christ is fully God. This does not mean that
Jesus is the only person who is God; rather, it means that His nature is
that of perfect, essential deity. Thus, the many passages that identify
Jesus as God (i.e., John 1:1, Titus 2:13, etc.) do not teach that Jesus is
the Father. Only by isolating these verses from their context, and in some
cases by ignoring the precise wording used by the biblical authors, can the
Oneness position be maintained.

Perhaps the Scripture most often cited by Oneness believers in favor of
their view of God is Colossians 2:9, "For in Him Christ dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily." This verse is the basis for the title of
Oneness writer Gordon Magee's widely distributed booklet Is Jesus in the
Godhead or is the Godhead in Jesus?19 Since Colossians 2:9 says that the
fullness of "the Godhead" dwells in Jesus, Oneness believers argue, the
Godhead is in Jesus, not Jesus in the Godhead. This either/or approach,
however, would force Colossians 2:9 to contradict John 10:38 where Jesus
states, "the Father is in Me, and I am in the Father." Since "the Father" in
Oneness terms is "the Godhead," John 10:38 in their terms means that the
Godhead is in Jesus, and Jesus is in the Godhead. When Oneness believers
deny that "Jesus is in the Godhead," what they mean to deny is that Jesus is
one person in a triune Godhead. Colossians 2:9, though, does not rule out
that possibility. What it affirms is that Jesus is no less than the full and
complete revelation of God's nature ('theotetos', "deity") in the flesh.
While not all three persons of God are incarnate in Jesus, all of God's
essence is incarnate in Jesus.

THE NAME OF JESUS

Central to the theology of Oneness Pentecostalism is an emphasis on the
name "Jesus" as the name of God since the Incarnation. The Oneness movement
began, in fact, with the "revelation" that the "name" of the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit spoken of in Matthew 28:19 was the name "Jesus," based on Acts
2:38 in particular.20 This is why Oneness Pentecostals are so adamant that
baptism be administered in the name of "Jesus only." This interpretation
assumes that there can be only one correct baptismal formula, which would
not appear to be provable from the texts themselves. It also makes much of
the fact that Jesus said "name," not "names."21 While this is true, it does
not absolutely rule out one name applying to three persons, since a singular
name can apply to two or more persons (e.g., Genesis 5:2; 11:4). Moreover,
if one name is meant, it need not be "Jesus"; it could be "Lord," the New
Testament equivalent of the name of Yahweh in the Old Testament.

In order to reconcile Matthew 28:19 with Acts 2:38 and similar passages it
is helpful to see them as pertaining to two different historical contexts.
Those who were converted to Christ and baptized in the name of Jesus were
either Jews (Acts 2:5, 38; 22:16), Samaritans (Acts 8:5, 12, 16),
God-fearing Gentiles (Acts 10:1-2, 22, 4 Cool

, or disciples of John the Baptist
(Acts 19:1-5).22 Already knowing of the God revealed in the Old Testament,
the critical issue for them was a confession of Jesus as Lord and Savior.
When pagan Gentiles who knew little or nothing of the God of Israel were led
to Christ, however, they would need to confess their faith, not only in
Jesus as Lord, but in the one God revealed in Scripture as Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. (23) Jesus, ordaining that the gospel be taken "to all the
nations," made provision for this in His "great commission" (Matthew 28:19).

In order to demonstrate that "Jesus" is the name for God in the New
Testament, Oneness Pentecostals cite passages such as Acts 4:12 ("no other
name under heavenby which we must be saved") and Philippians 2:9-10 (God
"bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that in the name of
Jesus"). The point of Acts 4:12 is identical to that of John 14:6-salvation
is through Jesus Christ alone; it does not mean that Jesus alone, to the
exclusion of the Father or the Holy Spirit, is God. In Philippians 2:9-10
"the name which is above every name" does not mean the name Jesus, but
rather, an additional name which the Father has bestowed on Jesus because of
His obedience to the point of death (v. Cool

. In context, that name is Lord,
since the passage concludes, "and that every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord" (v. 11). That "Lord" is the name given to Jesus can be
confirmed by a multitude of texts (see, for example, Acts 2:36; Romans 10:9,
1 Corinthians 12:3; 2 Corinthians 4:5). This is consistent with the fact
that "Lord" (kurios) is the New Testament equivalent of "Yahweh" or
"Jehovah," the name of God in the Old Testament (e.g., Acts 2:21; Romans
10:13).
FATHER AND SON

According to Oneness theology, the Father and Son are two natures in the
one person, Jesus Christ. If person is defined as "an individual being,"
then without question God is only one "person" in that sense. However, that
is not the best definition of the term, which is, as we have already
explained, used to mean simply a "self- aware subject," that is, an "I"
aware of its own existence and the existence of other self-aware subjects.
If, then, the Father and the Son are consistently presented in Scripture as
two self-aware subjects, then they are two persons, even if they are one
being. And the evidence for them being two persons is overwhelming; only a
few examples can be given here.24

There are, first of all, two passages in John where Jesus states that He
and the Father serve as two witnesses authenticating His ministry (John
5:31-32; 8:16-1 Cool

. His statement, "there is another allos who bears witness
concerning Me (5:32), proves that Jesus is not the Father. The term allos is
used here to mean someone "different from the subject who is speaking."25 In
John 8:16-18, Jesus makes the same point, and clarifies it by quoting the
Old Testament principle that two witnesses, not just one, are required for a
judgment to be considered valid (Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15; also Numbers
35:30). According to Oneness theology, what Jesus must have meant was that
His divine Spirit and His human nature both testified. If Jesus is only one
person, though, then only "one person" testified, not two, as Jesus' words
demand. It would make just as much sense for a man to say in court, "I am
two witnesses to the crime -- my body testifies, and my soul testifies," as
for Jesus alone to be two witnesses. These passages, then, are fairly
explicit statements to the effect that Jesus and the Father are two persons.

Further evidence is gained from the many passages that state that the
Father sent the Son (John 3:17; Gal.4:4; I John 4:10; etc.). The point here
is not that the Son existed prior to His birth (though that is true enough),
but that the Son is a person other than the Father. It is therefore
irrelevant to our point to cite John 1:6 (which says that God sent John the
Baptist), as Oneness writers often do.26 In fact, John 1:6 lends weight to
the Trinitarian view, since God and John the Baptist are, of course, two
persons. Moreover, note that Jesus told the disciples that He was sending
them just as the Father had sent Him (John 17:18; 20:21). Necessarily
implied here is that the disciples were not Jesus; neither was Jesus the
Father.

Also relevant is the fact that the Father loves the Son (John 3:25;
17:23-26; etc.), and that Jesus loves the Father (John 14:31). This most
naturally implies two persons; it certainly demands relationship, which is
central to our definition of "person." The Oneness explanation, "The Spirit
of Jesus loved the humanity and vice versa,"27 amounts to saying that Jesus
loved Himself. The fact is that natures do not love, persons do. My human
nature cannot love-only I can love, in and through my human nature. If
Oneness is correct, why is it that Jesus clearly and consistently implied
that He and the Father were two persons, rather than saying the things which
Oneness theologians think He meant?

Devastating to the Oneness view are the passages where Jesus prays to the
Father. Of course, they are aware of the problem and have an answer-the
human nature prayed to the divine nature. However, this runs into the same
problem as with the love of the two for one another: natures do not talk,
only persons do. In answer to this difficulty, their response is, "What
would be absurd or impossible for an ordinary man is not so strange with
Jesus."28 But this response evades the point: when Jesus prayed He prayed as
a person talking to another person, not as one nature talking to another
nature. Jesus addressed God as "Father," which is a relational term, not as
"My divine nature," as the Oneness believers assume He meant.

THE PREEXISTENT SON

Since the "Son," in Oneness theology, is the incarnate Jesus Christ, they
cannot allow the doctrine that the Son preexisted His incarnation to go
unchallenged. The concept of "eternal Sonship," and especially "eternal
generation," is, they say, both unbiblical and unreasonable. On this point,
a number of respected Trinitarian, evangelical scholars can be found who
agree.29 A mediating position rejects "eternal generation" but retains the
concept of "eternal Sonship."30 For our purpose in this article, it is not
essential to settle this question. What we wish to know is not whether it is
proper to speak of "the Son" as such prior to the Incarnation, but rather,
whether the person who is the Son existed as a person distinct from the
Father prior to the Incarnation. To this question, the biblical answer is a
clear yes.

For example, Proverbs 30:4 asks concerning God, "What is His name or His
son's name?" This statement clearly implies that the Son existed at the time
the passage was written. To circumvent this conclusion, Oneness writers
argue that the passage is a "prophecy" (see 30:1, KJV, where this word
appears), and is therefore referring to the future time when God would
manifest Himself as the Son.31 However, the word rendered "prophecy" here
and at Proverbs 31:1, massa', is usually rendered "burden" (over 50 times in
the KJV). A simple reading of chapters 30 and 31 should demonstrate that
neither "burden" is a predictive prophecy. Thus, the Son existed at least as
far back as Agur's day (30:1).

Then there are the many passages which state that the Word or Son created
the universe (John 1:3; Col. 1:16-17; Heb. 1:2; Revelation 3:14; etc.)
Hebrews 1:2 says that God made the ages through His "Son"-to which Oneness
writers reply that "God used His foreknowledge of the Son when He created
the world. He predicated the entire creation on the future arrival of
Christ."32 Whenever in Scripture the Son is said to have said or done
something, or even existed, prior to the Incarnation, it is explained as
only being true in God's foreknowledge. This arbitrary handling of Scripture
is justified by appealing to Revelation 13:8, which speaks of those "whose
names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world" (KJV). While this translation is grammatically
possible, the parallel passage in Revelation 17:8 suggests that the correct
rendering is, "whose name has not been written from the foundation of the
world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain" (NASB).33

Once it is understood that Revelation 13:8 cannot be used to relegate
anything said of the past to the foreknowledge of God, it becomes clear that
Jesus existed prior to creation-with-the Father. Thus, John 1:1, "the Word
was with God," means He was really there. The Oneness explanation34 that
"with" (pros) here should be rendered "pertaining to," based on Hebrews 2:17
and 5:1, ignores the grammatical difference between John 1:1 and the Hebrews
texts.35 Jesus' request to the Father in John 17:5 is to be taken literally:
"And now, glorify Me, O Father, with yourself, with the glory which I had
with you before the world existed." The word para ("with") is "nearly
always" used of a personal relationship,36 and is without question so used
in this context, which uses the relational pronouns "I" and "You" and the
relational name "Father."

OBJECTIONS

Confronted with the biblical evidence for a plurality of persons in the
unity of the Deity, Oneness advocates are likely to turn away from the
Biblical text itself to one or more stock objections to the doctrine of the
Trinity, all of which are used by anti-Trinitarians of all persuasions. We
can only respond briefly to two of these here.

The most common objection to the Trinity is that the doctrine employs
nonbiblical terminology ("Trinity," "person," etc.). While this is true, it
proves nothing. The word Oneness is not in the Bible, either; nor does the
Bible ever call the Father or Holy Spirit "manifestations" of God. On
another subject, the words Bible, canon, and inerrancy cannot be found in
Scripture, either: shall we then throw out these words, too, and the
doctrines they represent? Christians use such nonbiblical terms as "Trinity"
and "person" because they express the biblical truth about God in such a way
as to exclude unbiblical perversions of that truth. As Calvin explained
concerning Arius:

Arius says that Christ is God, but mutters that he was made and had a
beginning. He says that Christ is one with the Father, but secretly whispers
in the ears of his own partisans that He is united to the Father like other
believers, although by a singular privilege. Say "consubstantial" and you
will tear off the mask of this turncoat, and yet you add nothing to
Scripture. (37)

The other common objection to the Trinity is that it was not formulated
until the fourth century. It was supposedly imposed on the people by the
Roman Catholic church (by then quite apostate, we are told) through the
political agency of Constantine at the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325. This
argument is a mix of historical truth and error.

First of all, there was no "Roman Catholic church," in the sense of a
hierarchical church structure encompassing churches over a wide area with
the Roman bishop as the head, until the end of the sixth century. Indeed,
the Roman bishop did not even attend the Council of Nicea, which was almost
completely a Council of bishops from the Eastern churches.

Second, the doctrine of the Trinity as such originated long before
Constantine; all of the essential terms (three persons, one substance,
Trinity) were used by Tertullian well over a century before Nicea.

Third, although it is true that Constantine originally supported Athanasius
(the champion of Trinitarianism) and deposed Arius, in A.D. 332 he reversed
himself and supported Arius. For the next fifty years or so, Arianism was
the ruling movement.

Moreover, many doctrines that we now consider essential to Christian faith
came to us through an historical development similar to that of the Trinity.
The Bible does not list the books which belong in the canon; such a list was
not put together for the New Testament until the fourth century, in response
to heretics who were adding or subtracting books from Scripture. The Bible
never explicitly insists that it is inerrant in historical and scientific
matters. Inerrancy per se was not explicitly formulated until the nineteenth
century in response to those who said the Bible was inspired but contained
errors. Thus, doctrines that are taught or implied in Scripture become
formulated (given formal structure and definition) in response to heresy.
The same is true of the doctrine of the Trinity, which was formulated to
avoid the errors of Arianism and monarchianism.

Thus, far from being unbiblical, the Trinity is a faithful expression of
the Biblical teaching concerning God, and it has guarded the church from
heresy for centuries. To throw out the doctrine of the Trinity in favor of a
modernized version of monarchianism betrays an ignorance of church history,
as well as a misunderstanding of Scripture.

HERESY?

We have seen that the Oneness doctrine of God is not faithful to the
biblical revelation of the Father and Son as two persons, and that the
Oneness rejection of the Trinity is in error. The question now must be asked
how serious an error this is, since theological errors vary in their
harmfulness.

Some evangelicals suppose that a professed Christian movement may be judged
orthodox or heretical simply on the basis of whether or not it affirms the
full deity and humanity of Christ. Consequently, some Christians have
concluded that the Oneness doctrine, despite its denial of the Trinity, is
essentially Christian. This is far too simplistic, however. While it is true
that adherence to the two natures of Christ is critical to orthodoxy, and
while most pseudo-Christian sects do deny that Jesus is both fully God and
fully man, simply affirming the two natures is not enough. Indeed, it is
possible to call Jesus "God" and still have "another Jesus" (2 Corinthians
11:4), if in calling Him "God" one means something significantly different
from what the Bible means.

Such is the case with the Oneness understanding of the deity of Christ.
When Oneness believers say that Jesus is God, what they mean is that He is
the Father. That is not what the Bible means, as we have seen. Rather, when
the Bible says that Jesus is "God," it means that He exists eternally as a
divine person in relationship with the Father; or, to use the church's
theological shorthand, it means that He is the second person of the triune
God.

The apostle John warns us, "Whoever denies the Son does not have the
Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also" (1 John 2:23).
Oneness Pentecostals will not admit to denying the Son, of course; but that
should come as no surprise. It is doubtful that any heretic, including those
about whom John specifically warned, has ever admitted to denying the Son.
Instead, heretics of all kinds have simply redefined the meaning of the term
"Son" (and along with it the meaning of "Father"). Thus the Jehovah's
Witnesses define "Son" as "direct creation," while the Mormons claim that
Jesus is the "Son" of God by virtue of having been begotten as the literal
physical offspring of God (who is said to be an exalted Man) and Mary. The
Oneness redefinition of "Son" as the human nature of Jesus (and "Father" as
His divine nature) may be less offensive than the Mormon version, and less
obvious than that of the Jehovah's Witnesses, but it is a redefinition
nonetheless. The fact is that the Son and the Father are two persons,
co-existing eternally in relationship with one another. To deny this fact is
to deny the biblical Son, and thus to have a false view of Jesus.

It turns out, then, that one's view of Christ cannot be separated from
one's view of the Trinity. Deny the Trinity, and you will lose the biblical
Christ; affirm the Christ of Scripture, the Son who was sent by the Father
and who sent the Holy Spirit, and you will find that your God is the
Trinity. In fact, the doctrine of the Trinity expresses the distinctive
feature of the Christian revelation of the nature of the true God. As Calvin
expressed it:

"For He so proclaims Himself the sole God as to offer himself to be
contemplated clearly in three persons. Unless we grasp these, only the bare
and empty name of God flits about in our brains, to the exclusion of the
true God."38

Only the Christian God is triune, and consequently, to deny the Trinity is
to say that, historically, Judaism and Islam have been right about the being
of God, while Christianity has been wrong. Oneness writers have said as
much.39 Therefore, while there may be individual Oneness believers who are
saved, the Christian community has no choice but to regard the Oneness
movement as a whole as having departed from the Christian faith.

We must conclude, then, that the Oneness teaching is a heresy; that it
denies a fundamental, basic belief of biblical Christianity; and that those
churches and denominations that teach this heresy are not authentic
Christian churches but rather heretical sects. For that reason, we need to
view Oneness Pentecostals generally as people who do not know Christ in a
biblically authentic way. We urge orthodox Christians to reach out to
Oneness believers in love and share with them the triune God revealed in the
Scriptures.

NOTES
1. On the history of Oneness Pentecostalism, see David Arthur Reed, "Origins
and Development of the Theology of Oneness Pentecostalism in the United
States," Ph.D. diss. (Boston, MA: Boston University Graduate School, 1978);
and Oneness writer Frank J. Ewart, The Phenomenon of Pentecost (Houston:
Herald Publishing House, 1947; rev. ed., Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press,
1975). Word Aflame Press (hereafter WAP) and Pentecostal Publishing House
(hereafter PPH), both located in Hazelwood, are the official publishing
houses of the United Pentecostal Church, the largest Oneness denomination in
the world. Due to the brevity of this article, our analysis of Oneness
Pentecostalism is largely restricted to the UPC.

2. David B. Barrett, ed., World Christian Encyclopedia (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1982), 837.

3. David K. Bernard, The Oneness of God (WAP, 1983), 321-322. This book is
probably the best and most complete defense of the Oneness doctrine of God
in print.

4. Bernard, Oneness, 257-258,287; Kenneth V. Reeves, The Godhead (Revised),
6th ed. (WAP, 1962), 26-28; John Paterson, God in Christ Jesus (WAP, 1966),
40.

5. Bernard, Oneness, 142-143, 288.

6. Reeves, Godhead, 24-26.

7. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983
reprint), 3:607-608.

8. Ibid., 2:67. An excellent line-by-line discussion of the creed is found
in Creeds, Councils and Christ, by Gerald Bray (Downers Grove, Ill.:
InterVarsity Press, 1984), 175-191.

9. Bernard, Oneness, 257-260; Reeves, Godhead, 9.

10. See Bray, Creeds, 78-79, 146-171.

11. Ibid., 78.

12. Paterson, God in Christ Jesus, 12.

13. Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament Explanatory and Practical:
Isaiah (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1950 reprint), 1:193.

14. Benjamin Davidson, The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon (Peabody,
Mass.: Hendrickson, 1981 reprint), 1-2.

15. For example, see R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John's
Gospel (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961), 759-61.

16. David Campbell, All the Fullness (WAP, 1975), 43; John Paterson, The
Real Truth About Baptism in Jesus' Name (PPH, 1953), 16; Bernard, Oneness,
126, 137.

17. F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 138.

18. Bernard, Oneness, 42-44.

19. Gordon Magee, Is Jesus in the Godhead or is the Godhead in Jesus?
(Pasadena, TX: Gordon Magee, n.d.).
20. Reed, "Origins," 97-103; Ewart, Phenomenon of Pentecost (WAP ed.),
105-109.

21. Paterson, Real Truth, 12.

22. The Corinthian Christians were predominantly Jews and God-fearing Greeks
from the synagogue (Acts 18:1-8; cf. I Corinthians1:13).

23. F. F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame (Exeter, England: Paternoster Press,
1958), 240-41.

24. Space does not permit a discussion of the distinct personhood of the
Holy Spirit. However, it is safe to say that, once persuaded of the fact
that the Father and Son are two persons of an indivisible God, most will
concede the truth of the Trinity. This writer has encountered almost no one
who could be described as a "binarian."

25. William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the
New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1957), 39.

26. Bernard, Oneness, 184; Magee, Is Jesus in the Godhead, 24.
27. Bernard, Oneness, 186.
28. Ibid., 177.

29. Notably Adam Clarke; see David Campbell, The Eternal Sonship (A
Refutation According to Adam Clarke) (WAP, 1978). Walter Martin also
rejected the eternal Sonship doctrine, while insisting on the eternal
preexistence of the Word (Logos): see The Kingdom of the Cults, 5th ed.
(Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1985), 115-117.

30. J. Oliver Buswell, Jr., A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1962), 1:111-112.

31. Bernard, Oneness, 50, 159-160; Magee, Is Jesus in the Godhead, 23.

32. Bernard, Oneness, 116.

33. Alan F. Johnson, "Revelation," in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, ed.
Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), 12:528.

34. Bernard, Oneness, 61, 188.

35. In John 1:1 we have pros ton theon, "with God," whereas in Hebrews 2:17
and 5:1 we have ta pros ton theon, "the things having to do with God." The
use of the neuter plural article ta changes the meaning of pros.

36. Arndt and Gingrich, Greek-English Lexicon, 615.

37. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill,
trans. Ford Lewis Battles; Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1960), 1:127 (I.xiii.5).

38. Ibid., 122 (I.xiii.2).
39. Bernard, Oneness, 17, 19, 244, 299, 319; Reeves, Godhead, 23.

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