Challenging Orthodoxy: Further Scriptural Witnesses Against the Trinity Doctrine

Challenging Orthodoxy: Further Scriptural Witnesses Against the Trinity Doctrine

Ever since I began the commentary on the Gospel of John back in 2018, which was an endeavor that took me nearly two full years to complete, I have wanted to do certain topical programs which condensed particular subjects that are prominent in the Gospel of John into single topical presentations. In my estimation, the Gospel of John was the last one written, and was purposely written in a way which sets it apart from the synoptic Gospels. The apostle John illustrated teachings both about Christ and from Christ which the synoptic Gospels only represent superficially, or had excluded entirely. So I view John as a retrospective account of the Gospel, as John seems to have read the others, and chose to fill in many of the gaps from the substance and ministry of Christ which were left unrecorded in the synoptic gospels. One of those subjects is the nature of Christ Himself, so that John provides much of the evidence against the later so-called trinity doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. But for some time I procrastinated, having been busy with other projects, so it has been seven years, at least, since I first realized a need to do this, and when I finally began to prepare for this discussion, I honestly thought it would only be a single presentation. However doing that first presentation, I had to stop at about eleven thousand words, because I ran out of writing time, and that left several thousand words of notes for Scriptures that were left without mention. Therefore, here we are with a second discussion challenging the trinity doctrine, and I shall try not to repeat much of what I had said in the first discussion.

But when I finally resolved to discuss this subject of the so-called trinity here three weeks ago, it had been precipitated by a certain presumed friend who has continually accosted me, attempting to correct me for what he perceives to be my shortcomings. While we have been acquainted in social media for many years, he even joined the Christogenea Chat back in August, just to argue with me about his trinity doctrine, which he holds precious, and now he has once again badgered me in social media. But he also continually and rather consistently misrepresents me and my positions on the issue, probably because he has not actually read my papers. However, certain people seem to have a difficult time reading and grasping things which they find disagreeable, and now after several long back-and-forth discussions with this individual, I am convinced that he is one of them. He claims to admire my work, but he really only admires it to the point where he agrees, and then he thinks he has some divine commission to demand that I change where he does not agree. While I continue to disagree, in essence, his attitude is that he knows everything, and he can correct me because I don’t know what I am talking about. It is actually arrogant for such a man to keep confronting me when I refuse his correction.

So here is an excerpt from a recent comment [screenshot], which he had left when I posted that first part of this discussion:

The truth is, brother (and I mean it, we are Israelite kinsmen), and I risk judging or upsetting you with this one, you have too much scholarly power and greatness in you and for all the good it does to you and the thousands who follow your ministry, it fails you in one way: it prevents you from accepting certain things the way a simple child should do it, without questioning and disputing. One such thing is the simple and indisputable truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God. Just as you would never dispute the fact that He is the Messiah (and you don't have to write an article to convince your audience that He is the Messiah, as anyone who believes the Scriptures believes He is the Messiah). you should never dispute the fact that He is the Son of God (not God the Father claiming to be His own Son, that's an entirely different thing). You can either accept that He is truly the Son of God, or you will have to agree with Wickstrom, even if you presently attempt to position yourself halfway along the road.

Now, I can immediately look past all the flattery, which I endeavor to do even when it is sincere or comes from good friends. But let’s ponder this statement that somehow my scholarship prevents me from accepting Scripture as a child would accept Scripture. Of course, there are probably very few children who can do at least most of our studies, as they take years of research, but children should blindly believe and obey their fathers, which is the message behind the words of Christ where He beckoned his disciples to receive the Kingdom of God as a child (Mark 10:15, Luke 18:17, cf. Matthew 18:4). Christians, like children, should blindly believe and obey Yahweh their Father just as a child should believe his own earthly father, without argument or questioning. We shall mention that further as we proceed throughout our presentation this evening.

This friend made a conjecture about me, that I could not accept the Word of God as a child would obey his earthly father, and he attributed the reason for that to my studies. While I would never liken myself to Paul of Tarsus, that is the same excuse Festus used of Paul, that his much learning had made him mad, in Acts chapter 26. Then he also made another conjecture, that I would agree with Wickstrom. He tends to do this quite often, and it inhibits proper discussion. He inserts strawman elements into his arguments, things which I have not said nor do I believe, and he argues against those, rather than actually studying what I said so that he would know what I believe. All of the trinitarians I have argued with in social media have done similarly. They frequently think I am somehow denying aspects of God or Christ, when I am not denying them at all.

Something else I may mention here, is that at one point in our recent discussions, some sort of “CI Lite” type of pastor chimed in on our debate, and he endeavored to school me on the trinity. So he told me that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were like water, since water could be either liquid, ice or vapor. So I responded that God is One, and that water could not be all three things at the same time, but that God could be all three things at once. He never responded after that. Later I found that he considers himself a pastor, and he has a website for his church, where on its front page it professes to being “trinitarian in our theology” and he considers the Tetragrammaton to be a “Godhead” of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. [screenshot] Of course, such a description is not found in Scripture. When I realized this, I went back to the thread where he posted his silly argument, and found that both his post, and my reply, had been deleted. So my hope of having a screenshot of the conversation was dashed. I do hope he was embarrassed, but I doubt if he will change.

This is where the trinitarians fail: their theology confines God to the same limits of the elements of creation here in the physical world. Of course water can only be liquid, steam or vapor at any given time. But God transcends His Creation, and He is indeed the Almighty. So being God, He has the power to be Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, all at the same time, and even a child should be able to understand that. I told this friend that his trinity was silly, and he accused me of blasphemy, because he believes the trinity is God. In reality, he and the others are limiting God, by imposing human limitations on their own perception of God. We have already explained that the Greek words which they translate as “Godhead” simply mean Divinity or the state of being God, but they even treat that as a material construct, and impose material limitations upon it which force them to divide one God into three persons. But in reference to Yahweh God, I can only count to One. As Christ had said, where it is recorded in Mark chapter 12, “29 … The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.” A little child, having heard Christ utter those words, would simply accept them, and obey his Father. A little child would not react by fabricating a “godhead” and excuses to make three out of one. 

8. The Messianic prophecies of Isaiah chapters 7 and 9

A prophecy concerning Christ is found in Isaiah chapter 7, where a child would be born to Isaiah himself, whose birth had served as a prophetic type for the Messiah, and we read: “14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” While this had a more immediate fulfillment, it is also a prophetic type with Messianic connotations. So where the apostle Matthew had much later cited this passage in relation to Christ, where he had recorded a reaction to the account of the angel who had spoken to Joseph, in chapter 1 of his Gospel, he wrote: “22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

Now, if I believe that Christ was called Emmanuel because He is God, so that the people could honestly say that “God is with us”, how is that not much simpler than someone who believes that he was only one person on a Godhead of three persons? Is that how Matthew understood God? Or Joseph, or Mary? If so, you would think there would be one mention of a trinity in Scripture, however even after the advent of Christ and the revelation that He is God, Scripture insists that there is only one God.

In this same manner, we also accept Isaiah chapter 9 where we read: “6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” But our friend rejects this passage, because it is very different in the Septuagint, and he believes that the reading in the Septuagint better supports his trinity theology. While I do not know which edition of the Septuagint this friend prefers, Brenton’s translation of the Septuagint followed the Codex Vaticanus, and it does not mention God, the Father or the Prince of Peace in its version of that verse in Isaiah. Instead, it reads the last clause to say in part “6 … and his name is called the Messenger of great counsel: for I will bring peace upon the princes, and health to him.”

However, as we had demonstrated at length and with evidence from facsimiles in our commentary on Isaiah chapter 9, which was titled A Child is Born, the Greek text of the Septuagint as it appears in the Codex Alexandrinus agrees with the Masoretic Text as it is translated in the King James Version. Moreover, the margin of the Septuagint preserved in the Codex Sinaiticus also contains text which agrees with the Masoretic Text and the King James Version. But even more significantly, we also provided Origen’s reading of Isaiah 9:6, including the version in his copies of the Septuagint, from his Hexapla as it was reproduced by Fredericus Field for his 1875 publication of the work, along with my own translation, which I shall reproduce here:

5 To us a child is born, and to us a son is given, the authority is upon His shoulder, and His name is called Messenger of Great Counsel, Wonderful Advisor, Powerful God, Primacy, Prince of Peace, Father of the Coming Age. For I shall bring peace upon the rulers, peace and health to Him.

There I had to provide my own translation, because Fredericus Field only produced the Hexapla fragments in their original languages, and all of his notes are in Latin. Making that presentation, I also exhibited the fact that the Codex Alexandrinus agreed with the reading of the verse in the Hexapla very closely, and so do both the Latin Vulgate and the copies of Isaiah found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. But I neglected to mention the text of the Old Latin which was also reproduced in the Hexapla, and that also fully supports the reading in the Masoretic Text.

But picking and choosing a particular Septuagint edition while ignoring all of the other much older witnesses to the text is not exactly receiving the kingdom of God as a child. So it seems our friend is blind to the fact that it is he who has tripped over this obstacle, and not myself. The best original source manuscripts for Isaiah chapter 9 clearly prophesy of a child who would be the Mighty God, the Eternal Father and the Prince of Peace, the child whom we would ultimately know as Yahshua Christ.

9. Emmanuel come to Save His People

The apostle Matthew understood the divinity of Christ, and wrote about it in an entirely different manner than either John or Paul. Writing of the anticipated birth of the Christ child, first he recorded the instructions of the angel to Mary that “thou shalt call his name Yahshua: for he shall save his people from their sins.” The meaning of the Hebrew term Yahshua, as we define it, is “Yahweh saves”, or perhaps “Yahweh Saviour”, which is what He said He would be in Isaiah, asserting that there would be no other. So we shall read from Isaiah chapter 43 once more: “10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. 11 I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.” The Holy Spirit is Yahweh, Christ is Yahweh, and Christ is the Holy Spirit because He is Yahweh. They are all One and the Same God, and not three different persons in some trinity container which the Church calls a “Godhead”.

Then Matthew recorded that the circumstances of the birth of Christ fulfilled the words of Isaiah where he said: “23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” Those words are a Messianic prophecy which, like many other such prophecies, had an immediate fulfillment as they were issued, and a remote fulfillment in one or another of the prophesied advents of Christ. In Matthew chapter 1, Joseph was told to name the child which would be born of Mary by the name Yahshua, but that the people would say of Him that “God is with us” for the express reason that Christ is the Word made Flesh.

This leads to another digression, which is a brief discussion of the value of the trinity doctrine. The trinity is actually dangerous to Christianity. It leaves space for imagining that there is a distinction between God and Christ whereby other peoples, who are outside of the covenants of God, such as Jews or Muslims, can be imagined to worship the same God, or make the claim that they worship Him. However in reality, Yahshua Christ is God and Yahweh God is Yahshua Christ, so the one cannot be worshiped without the other. Denying, mocking, parodying or blaspheming Christ, as Jews and Muslims always do, they certainly do not worship the same God that the Christians worship. 

10. Trinity is a late fourth century doctrine of men

Perhaps most Christians would be surprised to learn that the trinity doctrine was not a doctrine at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Rather, the Council of Nicaea only made a declaration that Yahshua Christ is “begotten, not created, of one being with the Father”, and we find it difficult to disagree with that statement. However the trinity concept, and the elevation of the status of the Holy Spirit to a third so-called “person” in a trinity of three separate persons, comprising what became known in English as a Godhead, was not developed as a doctrine until the Council of Constantinople, in 381 AD. Another friend had raised this argument in response to my critic, so I thank him for that. But even though the friend who worships that late 4th century trinity contraption did not hear this from me, he nevertheless also rejected this other friend. In every way, the trinity is little but a late fourth century Rube Goldberg contraption.

[Goldberg, a jewish cartoonist, was “best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated gadgets performing simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways”, as Wikipedia describes him. For me, that describes the trinity perfectly.]

But with that understanding, that trinity was not a doctrine of the Church until 381 AD, Christians are apparently expected to believe that perhaps Christ and His apostles had failed to adequately explain the nature of God, and these fledgling Roman Catholic priests who came along 350 years later had to fix it for them. Of course, I am being sarcastic. I will continue to reject the trinity, and prefer to understand the nature of God so far as it is explained in Scripture. It is not difficult to understand that God is One, and that Christ is God, so long as one accepts these things as a little child who would believe his Father.

11. There is no aspect of God which is without Christ 

With that understanding, it becomes evident that there is no aspect of God without Christ, which is a plain statement that our friend has also criticized. However Christ is the light who came into the world, and that light is the light which no man had ever seen before Christ came into the world, which is declared in the first Biblical utterance of God in Genesis chapter 1: “3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” Paul of Tarsus described Christ, in Colossians chapter 1:

14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: 15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

Yahweh God had endeavored to come into His Own Creation from the beginning of that Creation, for which reason there was this announcement of light in Genesis chapter 1, light which no man had ever seen until the advent of Christ. So light and darkness were also first distinguished by that light, rather than by the sun, moon and stars which were created later. Therefore John had also explained that Christ was that Word made flesh, and that Christ was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. So the purpose of God was to manifest Himself in His Creation from the beginning, and Christ is the vessel for His Creation, His Light, His Word and His Salvation. Then, in Hebrews chapter 1, Paul declared that Christ is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person”, so that the person of God cannot be separated from Christ.

That word translated as person is the Greek word ὑπόστασις, and in reference to men perhaps person is acceptable, however it really describes the underlying foundation or substance of something, so Christ is the substance of God. Even a child could understand and believe that. Being the substance of God, Christ is not some mere avatar, mask or mode of God. That is another belief which Roman Catholics deride as modalism. Setting trinity against what they refer to as modalism, the Catholics create a false dichotomy, and a strawman argument so that they could more easily support their silly Rube Goldberg trinity. 

The apostle John had fully corroborated Paul’s words, but in different ways and using different terms. This is also the beauty and marvel of Scripture, that men so different as Paul and John could each describe the life and purpose of Christ in their own ways, and yet be in complete agreement.

So in John chapter 10, the apostle recorded the words of Christ spoken to His adversaries where He had said “30 I and my Father are one.” Then in chapter 14, John recorded the incident where Philip had asked Christ to “shew us the Father”, and Christ responded and said that: “9 … Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father…” Then much later, John wrote in chapter 5 of his first epistle: “11 And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” This is why I say that there is no aspect of God without Christ, because without Christ there is no life, but only death. Earlier in that epistle, in chapter 2, John wrote “23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father”, by which it is evident that he saw God and Christ as being inseparable. For this same reason, in John chapter 14 the apostle had recorded where Christ had attested that “6 … I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

12. The Root of Jesse and Yahweh’s Servant the Branch

In Isaiah chapter 11 there is a Messianic prophecy which says “10 And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the [Nations] seek: and his rest shall be glorious.” Paul of Tarsus had cited this in reference to Christ, in Romans chapter 15. Later, in Zechariah chapter 3, the prophet makes an example, using Joshua the high priest at the time when the second temple was being built as a prophetic type for the promised Messiah, and he wrote “8 Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH.” During the time of His ministry, Christ was called a Nazarene, because He was raised in Nazareth, but that name is also from a Hebrew word which means branch. Then in Zechariah chapter 6 we read: “12 And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD.” The branch of a tree is the part of the tree which bears its fruit, so it is an extension of the tree.

Much later, in Revelation chapter 5, Christ, the lion of Judah, is also described as the root of David, and further on, in Revelation chapter 22, we read: “ 16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.”

For Christ to be both the root of David, which would also be the root of David’s father Jesse, as it is in Isaiah, then Christ would have to be the direct ancestor of both Jesse and David. For Christ to be the branch, or the offspring of Jesse and David, then Christ would also have to be a descendant of Jesse and David. In Luke’s genealogy of Christ, in chapter 3 of his gospel, we read that Christ is a descendant of Jesse and David, and that He is also descended from “38 … Adam, which was the son of God”, as it is in the King James Version in the final verse of that chapter. If Christ is the root of Jesse, then Christ must be God, the same God who is the father of Adam. Therefore Christ must be the Yahweh of Genesis chapter 2, who described Himself as one God, and who had insisted that men worship Him as One God. A child should understand all of this, and accept it, just as Christ had told His disciples.

But this is what those men who had opposed Christ in the course of His ministry had been unable to understand, which we read in Matthew chapter 22:

41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David. 43 He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, 44 The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? 45 If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? 46 And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.

The trinitarians still cannot understand this. But the only way that all of these words of Scripture could be true, is that Yahweh God is both God the Father, and God the Son, and since God transcends His Creation, this is not impossible for Him. So Paul had explained in Romans chapter 7, that the Husband had died to release the wife from the law of the Husband, the wife representing the children of Israel collectively. For this reason, Christ had also declared to them that “I am He.”

13. I am He

In Isaiah chapter 51 there is another Messianic prophecy, which also describes the Gospel of Christ, where we read:

6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I. 7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

Citing this very passage in Romans chapter 10, Paul of Tarsus had described this passage as having been fulfilled in the Gospel of Christ. So verse 6 of this chapter of Isaiah there is a reference to the announcement of the Gospel which is prophesied in verse 7, and in verse 6 we read: “they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.” The day in which the Gospel had begun to be taught to men, it is Yahweh God Himself who was doing the speaking.

Earlier in Isaiah, in chapter 40, the Word of Yahweh had said, in verse 4: “I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.” This is the exact same claim which Christ had made several times according to John, for example in John chapter 8: “24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.” Then again in John chapter 13: “18 I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me. 19 Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.” Here Christ was asserting for Himself that He is that same God who frequently uttered those same words through the prophet Isaiah.

In Isaiah, in a prophesy of the Gospel, Yahweh had said that “they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.” Then when Christ said that “but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me”, He also said in relation to that fulfillment that “when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.” In John chapter 8, Christ had told His adversaries “When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.” Christ appeared as a man, but once He was crucified and resurrected, “then shall ye know that I am he”, and men would know that He is also the God who had made those same promises in Isaiah.

But thus could not be revealed until after His resurrection, even if Christ had often stated it as fact. For example, where He had prophesied His imminent sacrifice and resurrection in John chapter 10 we read “17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” Although Christ referred to the Father there, He also spoke of His Own life and said “I lay down my life, that I might take it again”, so He must be the Father. As Paul said in Hebrews chapter 2, Christ had taken upon Himself the seed of Abraham, rather than the nature of angels, “17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” The Root and the Branch of David is also the Author of His Own Life.

Therefore it is evident, that once they had seen that Christ had risen from the dead, then the apostles did know and acknowledge that He is Yahweh God. So, for example, when Thomas realized the fact of His resurrection, he declared Him to be “my Lord and my God”, as it is recorded in John chapter 20. When Thomas made that exclamation, we read: “ 29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Speaking to dispersed Israelites, Peter had told them, in chapter 2 of his first epistle: “25 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” This proves two things, first, that he was addressing people of the ancient lost sheep of Israel, and second, that by accepting Christ they were actually returning to Yahweh their God. So we read in Isaiah chapter 44: “21 Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me. 22 I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.” All of these things, Yahweh God the Father had accomplished in Yahshua Christ, who is the image of His substance, or person.

14. Christ is King

Throughout the four Gospel accounts, Christ had never claimed for Himself to be king of Israel. It is only recognized that He is King after His resurrection, in the Revelation and in various of the epistles of the apostles. However it is evident that the people, understood on their own, that their promised Messiah would be king, so if Christ was their Messiah, He should also be their King. As it is in Matthew chapter 2, the magi appeared in Jerusalem and inquired “2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the [Judaeans]? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.” However, it was not time for Christ to be King, and the people did not understand the prophecies completely. So we read in John chapter 6: that “15 When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.”

However in Isaiah chapter 43, Yahweh God asserts that He is the King of Israel, where we read: “15 I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King.” So Yahweh is King, and there is one King, and one Holy One. Yahweh never said “your Holy Two” or “your Holy Three”. He is also referring exclusively to Himself where He said “I am Yahweh your Holy One”. The silly man who describes his ministry as trinitarian and Yahweh as a “Godhead” of three persons is actually worshipping idols and imagining them to be his god. 

There is another prophecy of Yahweh as King, in Jeremiah chapter 23: “5 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. 6 In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” 

Where it says “The Lord our Righteousness” the Hebrew phrase is יהוה צדקנו or Yahweh Tsideq, accompanied with a suffix, נו (nun-vav)) which means our. So the promised King and the coming Branch is Yahweh our Righteousness. Yahshua Christ is indeed Yahweh God incarnate. Here we cannot imagine that Yahweh would give His Name to another. In Isaiah chapter 42 we read: “8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.” There is no need to understand Yahweh in any other way, and especially in the contraptions constructed by men who did not understand Him. 

In 1 Samuel chapter 8, the children of Israel had demanded an earthly king, something which was actually a grievous sin, where we read: “4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, 5 And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. 6 But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. 7 And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.” 

So several hundred years and many failed kings later, in Hosea chapter 13, the Word of Yahweh speaks to Israel in retrospect and says: “9 O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help. 10 I will be thy king: where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes? 11 I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath. 12 The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid.”

So there Yahweh referred to the event recorded in 1 Samuel, and after their kingdom was destroyed, and their kings brought to nought, He said “I will be thy king”. Yet Christ is King. There Yahweh also asked “where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities?” Yet Christ is Savior, as the apostles had often professed. Therefore it is imperative, that Christ is also Yahweh God Himself, incarnate as a man. That is the only way in which the Scriptures could be understood in a manner which leaves no conflict, where every Scripture is true, and in the end, there is still only One God. For this we have yet another example:

15. The Alpha and the Omega

In Isaiah chapter 44 we read: “6 Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.” The trinitarians like to think that the Father is God, and that Christ is God, and even also that the Holy Spirit is God, but Yahweh said “beside me there is no God”. He did not say anything about some other God, or some other person sharing His position as God. 

This is asserted once again in Isaiah chapter 48: “12 Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last. 13 Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.”

Yahweh is the first and the last, the Hand of Yahweh laid the foundation of the earth, but Paul wrote of Christ in Colossians chapter 2 and said: “15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”

Yet Christ was born over 5,400 years after His ancestor, Seth was born, or after Adam was created. So if Christ is not Yahweh Himself, then the Scriptures are a lie. But as Paul wrote here, Christ is the image of Yahweh, the physical manifestation of Yahweh, the God of the creation account in Genesis. Once again, a child could believe that, without constructing idols with names that do not even appear in Scripture.

Rather, we read in Revelation chapter 1, where it is speaking of Christ: “7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. 8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” This phrase describing Christ as the first and the last is repeated four times in the Revelation, all in reference to Christ, and we read in Revelation chapter 22: “12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. 13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”

Yahshua Christ, begotten by God, the Son of God, could only be first and last, and root and branch, and David’s Son David’s and Lord, if He is Yahweh God incarnate, and not some second person on some contrived trinity. I will not cease from mocking the belief in a trinity, because the trinity is not God, it is actually contrary to God.

16. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Lord

The phrase “holy spirit” appears on only three occasions in the entire Old Testament. But on two of those occasions, in the 51st Psalm (51:11) and in Isaiah chapter 63 (63:11) it is used to describe the spirit of God within men. So we may also interpret the phrase in that same manner where it appears in that same place in Isaiah 63:10: “But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.” In any event, the Holy Spirit is Yahweh’s Spirit, and frequently it is described as having come upon men, which is also a promise in the New Testament.

The phrase “spirit of God” is found in Scripture in 26 verses, 12 of which are in the New Testament. The phrase “spirit of the living God” appears once in the New Testament. The phrase “Spirit of the Lord” appears in 31 verses, 5 of which are in the New Testament. Of course, they all refer to the Spirit of Yahweh.

In one statement in the Gospel of John, Yahshua Christ had asserted that He is both the Father and the Holy Spirit, although the assertion is made in a very subtle manner. This is found in the promise of a comforter, which He had made to His disciples as it is recorded in John chapter 14, and then, as it appears in the King James Version, He said: “18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” But the Greek word for comfortless in that statement is ὀρφανός, which is an adjective that means “orphan, without parents, fatherless”, as Liddell & Scott define the term. The truth of that is fully evident in English, as the Greek word ὀρφανός is also the source of our English word orphan, which is to be without parents. 

So Christ, who had claimed to have been one and the same as the Father earlier in that chapter, answering the inquiry of Phillip, had here indicated once again, that if He would leave His disciples, they would be left fatherless. Then in reference to the promised Comforter, Christ had told them “I will come to you.” So Christ is one and the same with the Holy Spirit just as He is one and the same with the Father.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 3, Paul of Tarsus had written of a mind which should turn to Christ in order to understand the Scriptures, because the Scriptures had a vail over them, an analogy Paul had made using the vail of Moses, and he wrote: “14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. 15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. 16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. 17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” This is certainly a reference to that same Holy Spirit or Comforter of which Christ Himself had said “I will come to you.”

So where Paul had said “Now the Lord is that Spirit”, the only other Spirit mentioned in that chapter is found earlier, in verse 3 where he wrote: “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.” So Paul informs us that Christ is the Spirit of the living God. The apostles of Christ certainly did not teach trinity, which is obviously a heresy that must be discarded, for reasons we hope to discuss once again at the end of this presentation.

17. The good Shepherd

In John chapter 10, Christ had asserted that He is the Good Shepherd, where He is recorded as having said that:

7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. 10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. 12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. 13 The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. 15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

Here we must take note of this: there is one fold, and one shepherd. This is both a prophecy and a declaration of the fulfillment of a prophecy. It is a prophecy because the apostles of Christ would indeed bring His Gospel to the sheep scattered abroad, and they would hear His voice in that Gospel, accepting Christ and returning to His fold.

But it is a declaration of a fulfillment of an earlier promise made by Yahweh God in reference to His sheep, which is found in Ezekiel chapter 34, where Yahweh first addresses the prophet and says:

2 Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?

Then after explaining that the shepherds of Israel had scattered the sheep, we read:

6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. 7 Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD; 8 As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock; 9 Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD; 10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them. 11 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out [Heis Christ]. 12 As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

So once again, if Christ is the Good Shepherd who has promised to recover His sheep, He must be Yahweh God, who promised to search for and recover His sheep “12 As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.”

18. The Forgiver of Sins

It is evident in the words of Jeremiah, in chapter 33, that Yahweh God had promised to forgive all of the sins of Israel, where we read:

7 And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. 8 And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me.

Of course, the return of the captivity must also be a different way to describe the gathering of the sheep mentioned by Christ in John chapter 10.

There are many other promises in the words of the prophets, that Yahweh God would forgive the sins of Israel. Among them, we read in Isaiah chapter 43, where the Word of Yahweh addressed Jacob collectively and says, in part: “24 Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. 25 I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” Then in Isaiah chapter 44: “21 Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me. 22 I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.”

But in relation to the later ministry of Christ, it is evident, where John the Baptist had later sent to Christ and asked whether He was the Messiah, which is recorded in the opening verses of Matthew chapter 11, that John himself really did not understand the gravity of his words when he had baptized Christ, at an earlier time, and declared for Him to be “29 … the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” as we read in John chapter 1. Then, as John recorded it a few verses later, “35 The next day Iohannes again stood, and two from among the students, 36 and looking at Yahshua walking about he says: ‘Look, the Lamb of Yahweh!’” 

So John the Baptist had declared that Christ was the Lamb of God, and that must be a reference to the same Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, as Christ is called in the Revelation. This aspect of Scripture and the purpose of the Messiah is described explicitly in Isaiah chapter 53: 

1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? 2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

In the Old Testament, it is true that only God could forgive sins. So when the Pharisees saw that Christ had told a man that his sins had been forgiven, in Luke chapter 5 we read: “ 21 And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?” So for example, we read in Exodus chapter 34: “6 And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” 

In the 51st Psalm, where David had sinned, he made both a prayer and a profession: “1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.” Only Yahweh God had made the law, and only Yahweh had held Israel to the law, so transgressions against the law are transgressions against Yahweh God and only He can forgive them.

In Luke chapter 5, the scribes and Pharisees did not err, since they had perceived Christ as a mere man. But since Christ is Yahweh God incarnate, he did indeed have the authority to forgive sin. The failure of the scribes and Pharisees is found in the fact that they did not respect the miraculous works of Christ, which fulfilled another prophecy in Isaiah chapter 29: “17 Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest? 18 And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness. 19 The meek also shall increase their joy in the LORD, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.”

So the Messianic prophecy of Isaiah chapter 53 declares Christ as a lamb brought to the slaughter on account of the sins of the people, and by that act He took away the sins of the society, meaning the Israelite society. Later, in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul of Tarsus makes an analogy of sin and leaven, in reference to the Passover, which was celebrated without leaven, where he said “7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.” The apostle Peter also wrote of Christ in that manner, where he said in chapter 1 of his first epistle that “18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21 Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.”

Then even later, in the Revelation, in chapter 5 we see a reference to a “Lamb as it had been slain”, and in chapters 6 and 7 several more references to the Lamb, which is Christ. Then after several other references to the Lamb in chapters 12, 13, 14, 15 and 17, in chapter 21 we read where it describes the City of God: “22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. 23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.” Christ is the Lamb of God, and He is also the Light of the World. Finally, we see in Revelation chapter 22: “1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him.” Of course, nobody shall see Yahweh God on that throne, because He is invisible, so if we are fortunate enough to see that time, we shall only see the Lamb, which is Christ.

It should become evident to a Christian, that the entire dispensation of the Old Testament rituals and feasts were organized with symbolism and allegories that pointed that way to Christ, who was their ultimate salvation as the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”, as He is described in Revelation chapter 13. So the original Passover, where the children of Israel were preserved by the blood of a lamb, was in itself a prophecy of the Christ as the Lamb of God, where in Revelation chapter 7 we read of the saints: “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”, and again in chapter 12 concerning Satan: “11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”

But now we must ask, how did the death of Christ cleanse Israel of its sins? That is answered by Paul, and we have already discussed this in our first presentation on this subject. Yahweh is the Husband of Israel, and when a husband dies, the wife is free from the law of her husband, as Paul had explained in Romans chapter 7. So trinity adherents must be able to explain how the Husband died to free Israel from the law, and the burden of proof is on them. Yet we know that Christ, being Yahweh God manifest in the flesh, certainly He is both the Husband who died, and the Son who is risen. To mock the man who made the water analogy, if God wanted to be water, He could be liquid, ice and vapor all at the same time. So Yahweh God could also be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all at the same time.

Parts of my conclusion to this exhibition is derived from other papers at Christogenea, namely my John and Malachi commentaries, but I will repeat it all again here:

Among Christians, the trinity doctrine is the first of heresies, but not because it was the earliest, it did not exist until the end of the 4th century. However, it is probably the most significant. There is no actual support for it in the original Scriptures. The trinity doctrine is a dangerous heresy because it leaves space for antichrists to claim that they can worship a part of Yahweh God which is somehow void of Christ. Therefore Christians are deceived into imagining that Jews and Muslims and other antichrists ultimately all have the same God, which is a lie and a deception. 

Therefore the trinity doctrine is really just a way to compromise with devils. In my opinion, the antichrists themselves must have introduced this doctrine so that they could maintain a facade of legitimacy, but beneath the veneer there is every form of wickedness. With it, they can lay claim to a piece of the Godhead and purport to have a path to piety without Christ, when in the gospel Christ Himself informs us that “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one goes to the Father except through Me!” Then almost immediately after that He said “He who has seen Me has seen the Father!”

So Christians must understand that Christ being Yahweh God manifest in the flesh, there is no part of the Deity which could possibly be void of Christ! One cannot read the Word of that Old Testament God without imagining that those are the words of Christ, because Christ is that Word made flesh, and one cannot read the words of Christ without imagining that they are the Word of Yahweh, the Old Testament God, because He is that Word made flesh. Where He spoke to Himself, where He prayed to Himself, He did so because He lived as a man for an example to men, for the benefit of men and not for Himself. Therefore all of the devils must be rejected, because there is no God without Christ, who is God. There is no room for devils in the Kingdom of Heaven, and neither should there be any space given to them here on earth. Since Christians should seek to manifest the Kingdom of God here on earth, there is certainly no space for them there. 

We must reject any notion of “trinity” as a doctrine. Yahweh our God is real, He is omniscient, and He is omnipotent – but He is also One, regardless of how He chooses to manifest Himself. So He can be God the Father, and God the Son, and the burning in the bush, and the rock in the desert, and the fire on the mountain, and the voice from out of the clouds. He can be all of these things at once and at any given time if He so desires. When the apostles realized that He had overcome death, they proclaimed Him as God not because Jesus somehow became as God, but because they themselves realized at that point that He is God, knowing from the implications of the Scripture that He must be Yahweh who had promised that He would redeem Israel. That is the essence of the Word made flesh.

Some fools have said to me, ‘Oh, God was not the pillar of fire, but He was in the pillar of fire.’ That is tantamount to saying ‘Oh God was not Christ, God was only in Christ.’ But the very purpose of the physical manifestation is to represent the ethereal being for which the physical manifestation is a vessel, and the physical manifestation would not at all exist except for that purpose. So the fools are foolishly splitting hairs. Even our physical bodies are not the real us, since our bodies are only vessels for our spirits; our spirits are the real us. The pillar of fire, the rock in the desert, the glory in the temple and among other things, the man who stood on the mount of Olives were all vessels for the spirit of One and the same God.

The Scripture demands that we repent of idols, and the fourth century trinity heresy is one of the more significant of those idols.