Who is Your Savior? A Review of a Sermon by Bertrand Comparet

Who is Your Savior? A Review of a Sermon by Bertrand Comparet

Perhaps six or eight weeks ago, we learned of a group which claimed to be Christian Identity, but which has been led off into believing a Roman Catholic heresy which is called “trinity”, which is of course a word, and a concept, that is not found in Scripture. Some members of this group are, or were, also participants in Christogenea forums. So at first we addressed this by presenting a paper from Clifton Emahiser titled The Day The Word Became Flesh, and now we shall address it further by presenting a Bertrand Comparet sermon titled Who is Your Savior? Doing this, our main point is to show that traditional Identity Christians such as Comparet understood that the “trinity” heresy is incompatible with Biblical Christianity.

For many simple reasons, the Roman Catholic trinity heresy, and we will call it Roman Catholic because that is where it began, with the development of the Roman Catholic Church, is absolutely incompatible with what we call Covenant Theology, and therefore it is incompatible with our view of Christian Identity, as Identity is based on Covenant Theology. It is also idolatry, as it forms the One True God into three different persons, perverting the Biblical perception of elements of His Being into the image of man. The worst aspect of this is the Catholic claim that the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of God, somehow becomes a person separate from God the Father and His Christ, simply because of “love”. From here, the possibilities for continued sophistry and idolatry are endless.

But a critical foundation for understanding both Covenant Theology and the true nature of Yahshua Christ is an understanding of the relationship between Yahweh God and the children of Israel. When Yahweh took the children of Israel to Himself as a peculiar people, He was expressing His purpose to keep the promises to Abraham, and at the same time the collective people of Israel, the nation, was considered His bride. Thus we read in Isaiah chapter 54: “5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.” While there are many other witnesses to this concept in the Old Testament, this one should suffice here.

Being the Creator of Israel, Yahweh was also the Father, so from that perspective we read in Isaiah chapter 63 where, in a prophetic manner, the children of Israel are portrayed as saying: “16 Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O LORD, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.” Of course, this portrayal was made of a time future to Isaiah’s own, and it depicts the circumstances of the children of Israel in captivity, put off from God for their sins, which is the very reason they needed to be redeemed.

So Yahweh God is the Creator, or Maker, and the Father, and the Husband and the Redeemer of Israel. Yet in the Gospel accounts, Yahshua Christ was called the Creator by Paul of Tarsus, and in the Gospels He was called Bridegroom and the Redeemer of Israel. How could this be so, if they are separate persons? How could a husband be married by proxy? How can a son have his father’s wife, something for which Paul of Tarsus had condemned a certain Corinthian? How can a son die to release his mother from the law of the father, so that essentially, the father only dies by proxy? Where is the authority for any of that in the law? Actually, it is all contrary to the law, and therefore in the case of Yahweh and Yahshua Christ, the Father and the Son must be one and the same person, or entity.

The putting off, or putting away of Israel was described as a divorce in several passages of Scripture. Thus we read in Isaiah chapter 50: “50:1 Thus saith the LORD, Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.” Then again in Jeremiah chapter 33, speaking of Israel and Judah: “24 Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the LORD hath chosen, he hath even cast them off? thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.”

The children of Israel, divorced for fornication and adultery, were worthy of death under the law. Yet somehow, Yahweh God, the Husband, would not slay them. Instead, He had already promised to make a New Covenant with them. So we read in the very next verses of Jeremiah: “25 Thus saith the LORD; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; 26 Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them.”

Likewise, speaking of the Israelites who were being divorced by Yahweh in the very description of their being put off in Hosea, we see another promise of future reconciliation, in Hosea chapter 2: “19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. 20 I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.” So if Yahweh promised to betroth Israel unto Himself forever, how could a Son, which is a separate person, fulfill that role?

Paul of Tarsus, in Romans chapter 7, described how the children of Israel would be freed from their condemnation under the law, which made the way for their being reconciled to Yahweh their God in Christ: “1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” If Christ is the Husband that died to free Israel the wife from the law, so that Israel would not be condemned under the law, then Yahshua Christ must be Yahweh God Incarnate, and not a separate person, because it was Yahweh God who had Himself declared that He was the Husband, and that He was the Redeemer.

Paul of Tarsus also explained that Christ was not a separate person from God, but rather, Christ is the image of the person of God, since God Himself is not truly a person. In Hebrews chapter 1 he wrote, as it is translated in the King James Version, that Christ is: “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person,” and then he explains that Christ “by himself purged our sins”, as Yahweh God had promised in that same chapter of Jeremiah which we have just cited, chapter 33: “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.” So Yahshua Christ is Yahweh God Incarnate, who by Himself had kept that promise.

The Catholic trinitarians endeavor to obfuscate the plain truth of God with an artificial concept of a godhead, another concept which is not found in Scripture. As we explained the last time we discussed this subject, the words translated in the King James Version as godhead, which are θεῖος and θεότης, describe what comes from God and divinity or the state of being God, a state which of course only belongs to Yahweh our God. So the Catholic apparatus of a “godhead” into which they attempt to insert three separate persons is an artificial construct of men, and we do not need this novel word, or this novel concept, to describe what is or what comes from Yahweh our God.

With this basic foundation of Covenant Theology, which we express with the term Christian Identity, we shall now present a critical review of Bertrand Comparet’s sermon, Who Is Your Savior? As with nearly all of our sermons by Comparet, this was also originally transcribed by Jeanne Snyder, and then prepared for publication on the internet, and edited, by Clifton Emahiser. At the end of the sermon, Clifton added some of his own notes, and I will include them here also. Clifton had opened his notes with the remark: “I will rate Comparet about 95% on this presentation, and I will not go into detail here concerning the 5% with which I do not agree. Rather, I will reinforce Comparet’s position with further evidence that there is but one God.” But we shall save the rest for the end, and present:

Who Is Your Savior? by Bertrand L. Comparet

All Christians denominations agree that Yahshua is our Savior, the scriptural authority for this is very clear. 2 Peter 1:11, 2:20 & 3:18 speaks of our Savior, Yahshua.

From 2 Peter 1:11: “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ…. ” Then, from 2:20: “20 For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.” Finally, from 3:18: “18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.”

1 John 4:14 says, “And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.”

We must hold this in mind, as Comparet will refer to Christ as Savior later on. Now, since John also called Christ the Son sent by the Father, Comparet continues with that theme:

Christians also agree that Yahshua is the Son of Yahweh, upon good authority. Mark 1:1 reads, “The beginning of the gospel of Yahshua, the Son of God.” John 1:34 states, “And I saw, and bare record, that this is the Son of Yahweh.” Matthew 3:17 tells us, “And lo, a voice from heaven saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Now that it is established that Christ is the Son as well as the Savior, Comparet describes a third aspect, or function of Christ, and then a fourth:

At least some of the churches also recognize that Yahshua is our Redeemer, although they haven’t any clear idea of what redemption is. This is also on scriptural authority. Galatians 4:4-5 says, “But when the fullness of the time was done, Yahweh sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”

This is probably more clear in Galatians chapter 3 where Paul wrote: “13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” But in a promise related to Christ we read in Luke chapter 1: “68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people”, and again, among the disciples who were not yet entirely certain of the meaning of the Crucifixion, in Luke chapter 24 we read: “21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.”

Finally, Comparet describes a fourth aspect of Christ, which is that He is the Word made flesh. Many Roman Catholic and denominational Christians, which includes the so-called Orthodox variety, confuse the Logos, or Word, which is Christ with various concepts of Logos from Classical Greek philosophy. But Christians should be assured that John was asserting for Christ to be the embodiment of the Word from Genesis chapter 1 which declared “Let there be”, as Christ is also said to have created all things, in Colossians chapter 1, which Yahweh God the Father took credit for having done in Isaiah chapter 40.

There in Isaiah, Yahweh declares: “25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. [Not the “Holy Three”!] 26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth. 27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God? 28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.” The only way to reconcile this with Paul’s words in Colossians is to understand that Yahshua Christ is one and the same, but not a separate person, with Yahweh God the Father and Creator, as Paul wrote in Colossians, speaking of Christ: “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.”

So Comparet continues and says:

Finally, some of them take note that Yahshua is the Word, a phrase only used by the apostle John. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Now there are more aspects, titles and descriptions of Christ than these four, however Comparet evidently limited his descriptions to these in order to make his point:

Having agreed on these descriptive titles, the area of disagreement begins when the churches have to answer the question, who was He and what was He? They all agree Yahshua (whom they call Jesus) is in some way connected with the Godhead. Through the centuries there has been bitter and sometimes murderous disagreement as to the exact nature or degree of His divinity. Such disagreements spring from lack of knowledge of the scriptures by substituting man’s doctrines for the word of Yahweh. Let’s look a little deeper into this.

Here I think Comparet erred where he said that “Yahshua… is in some way connected with the Godhead”, because as we saw in the definitions of the words translated as godhead, the godhead is only what comes from God, or the state of being God, which we may call divinity. So Paul also wrote of Christ in Colossians chapter 1 and said: “9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” We would translate that to say “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Divinity bodily.” While the body of Christ was formed after the manner of other men, in the womb of His mother, He was a temple, or tabernacle, for Yahweh God Himself, as Yahweh had also promised in Ezekiel chapter 37 where He said “27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

So now Comparet rather appropriately asks:

Have we one God, or three? Under the Old Testament, the theologians were familiar with one God. Because the records and the manuscripts of the scriptures, had been fraudulently changed by the priests and scribes, they called that one God “Lord”, as I explained in my lesson, “Who is Your God?” The people were told that Yahshua was also Lord, so some decided there must be two Lords. The Holy Spirit, wrongly translated “Holy Ghost” in the King James Bible, is spoken of in the New Testament as greatly exalted. Maybe they had better not offend Yahshua by assigning Him any lower position.

Perhaps Comparet is referring to the words of Christ found in Matthew chapter 12 where He warned against the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. But as we have also asserted, Christ Himself is the Holy Spirit, as we read in John chapter 14 that He promised: “26 … the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name,” at the same time that He had also professed that “18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” That word for comfortless is more literally translated as fatherless.

Paul made this same equation, for example in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 where he wrote: “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. 18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” So here we see the Holy Spirit described as the “Spirit of the Lord”, and as Comparet began to describe here, Christ is described throughout the New Testament with the title κύριος, or Lord, and that is the title which the scribes had used in Greek texts wherever we see the Tetragrammaton, or YHVH, for Yahweh in the Hebrew of the Old Testament.

So in the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament we have κύριος as a title for both Yahweh, the Father and God of the Old Testament, and for Christ. But Paul and the other apostles were not confused. Rather, Paul had attested in Ephesians chapter 4 that “4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; 5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” If there is one Spirit then the “Spirit of the Lord” is the Holy Spirit, and if there is one Lord then Yahshua Christ is Yahweh, the same Lord, or κύριος, of both Old and New Testaments. So there is no trinity, but only One God in several different manifestations.

Continuing with Comparet, because so many doctrines of men were incorporated into the Roman Catholic Church, he says:

Therefore, many began arguing that we had a trinity of Gods. Since this so obviously led right back to the pagan polytheism, they had to develop another dogma to meet this problem, that the three Gods between them, constituted but one God. None of them could understand how this could be, so they said it was a great mystery and to them it was! Perhaps it might be similar to the way many thousands of stockholders in Standard Oil Company make but one corporation out of them all.

By the fourth century A.D., the controversy between the Trinitarians and the believers in one God, the later led by Arius, became so bitter that Emperor Constantine called the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. Constantine commanded the divided church to settle its controversy. At this council, the Trinitarians outnumbered the Arians, so on a numerical vote basis alone, the doctrine of the trinity was adopted. Perhaps some of you are thinking of 1 John 5:7 reading, “For there are three that bear record in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” This verse wasn’t in the original, it was added centuries after John wrote his epistles. None of the early Christian writers quote this verse. It was not cited as authority for the Trinitarian position at the Council of Nicea. They surely would have triumphantly read it, if it had been in existence then.

Actually Arius, whose disciples were called Arians, did not believe in One God in the same manner that Christians should, as he did not esteem Christ to be God. Arianism believed that Christ was distinct and subordinate to the Father. The first known mention of a trinity is probably in the writings of Tertullian, whom the Roman Catholic Church had deemed a heretic for many other reasons. But the Roman Catholic Church believes Christ is a separate person from God the Father, who is also a person, and separate from the Holy Spirit, which they call a third person of an imaginary “Godhead”, whereby they claim that the three are one. As we have said, that is a perversion of terms, since the words which are translated as godhead bear no such meaning.

The entire dichotomy is false. While the physical body of Christ surely was created by God, so is every other manifestation of God in the physical world, as God is invisible and does not have human features in the physical sense in which persons have them. Therefore Christ is the image of the person of God, as Paul explained, and in Him is the “fullness of the Divinity bodily”, as Paul also explained. The created body of Christ is the tabernacle of God on earth, as Yahweh had promised, and therefore Yahshua Christ IS THE ONE AND ONLY person of God.

But at the time there were other philosophers, or theologians to satisfy, and it seems that they prevailed. Many early so-called Christian writers were converted from various pagan philosophies, and they did not shed all of their pagan ideas. For example, Justin Martyr was a former Platonist, and in his writings he cited Plato often. Justin described a trinity but not in the same terms which the later Roman Catholics describe a trinity. Justin was a Samaritan who seems to have been ignorant of the writings of Paul of Tarsus. But a man who was much more influential, Clement of Alexandria, was also a Platonist, as was another influential early Alexandrian, which was Origen. All three so-called “Church Fathers” borrowed from Platonism, or what is called Middle Platonism, and also adopted ideas from Gnosticism even when they argued against the Gnostics. The 9th-century archbishop Photios I of Constantinople is said to have remarked that one treatise of Clement’s “was highly syncretic, featuring ideas of Hellenistic, Jewish, and Gnostic origin…” Such syncretism is often evident in the writings of the so-called “Church Fathers”, who sought to synchronize aspects of Scripture and Greek Philosophy.

So we shall read the short article on the Demiurge, the creator god of both Platoninsts and Gnostics, from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Demiurge, Greek Dēmiourgos (“public worker”), plural Demiourgoi, in philosophy, a subordinate god who fashions and arranges the physical world to make it conform to a rational and eternal ideal. Plato adapted the term, which in ancient Greece had originally been the ordinary word for “craftsman,” or “artisan” (broadly interpreted to include not only manual workers but also heralds, soothsayers, and physicians), and which in the 5th century BC had come to designate certain magistrates or elected officials.

Plato used the term in the dialog Timaeus, an exposition of cosmology in which the Demiurge is the agent who takes the preexisting materials of chaos, arranges them according to the models of eternal forms, and produces all the physical things of the world, including human bodies. The Demiurge is sometimes thought of as the Platonic personification of active reason. The term was later adopted by some of the Gnostics, who, in their dualistic worldview, saw the Demiurge as one of the forces of evil, who was responsible for the creation of the despised material world and was wholly alien to the supreme God of goodness.

Then, in part, from the New World Encyclopedia:

Three separate meanings of the term may be distinguished. For Plato, the Demiurge was a benevolent creator of the laws, heaven, or the world. Plotinus identified the Demiurge as nous (divine reason), the first emanation of "the One" (see monad). In Gnosticism, the material universe is seen as evil, and the Demiurge is the creator of this evil world, either out of ignorance or by evil design.

Alternative Gnostic names for the Demiurge include Yaldabaoth, Yao or Iao, Ialdabaoth and several other variants. The Gnostics often identified the Demiurge with the Hebrew God Yahweh. Christian opposition to this doctrine was one factor in the decision of the Church to include the Hebrew scriptures of the "Old Testament" in the Christian Bible.

Then, a little further on in that same source:

For Neoplatonist writers like Plotinus, the Demiurge was not the originator of the universe, but a second creator or cause (see Dyad). The first and highest God is the One, the source, or the Monad. The Monad emanated the Nous, divine mind or reason, which Plotinus referred to as the Demiurge.

As Nous, the Demiurge is part of the three ordering principles:

1. arche - the source of all things

2. logos - the underlying order that is hidden beneath appearances

3. harmonia - numerical ratios in mathematics

In this Plotinus claimed to reveal Plato's true meaning, a doctrine he learned from Platonist tradition but did not appear outside the academy or in Plato's texts. Writing in the third century C.E., Plotinus was clearly aware of Gnostic teachings about the Demiurge and wrote in part in opposition to them.

In relation to the gods of mythology the Demiurge is identified as Zeus within Plotinus' works.

Among the early Christians whom Plotinus is said to have influenced are Augustine of Hippo, and indirectly, Thomas Aquinas.

So it is this backdrop of only slightly differing versions of what is basically the same philosophy wherein was developed the trinity doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. At the same time, there were Jews and Judaizers influencing early Christians who also had branded Christians as idolaters for worshipping Yahshua Christ, a man, as God. So another result of the trinity doctrine, which we also believe was a cause of its development, is the fact that it leaves open a portion of the so-called “godhead” so that Jews, and later Muslims, can claim to worship the same God.

Now Comparet continues to speak of the so-called Johannine Comma, which is a clause inserted in the passage which is now known as 1 John 5:7-8 where it reads, and we will only read the added portion as it appears in the King James Version: “7… in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness in earth…” So 1 John 5:7-8 should actually read, repeating the balance from the King James Version after the Johannine Comma is removed: “7 For there are three that bear record: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” Some manuscripts have an even longer insertion, and others have the words of verse 8 in a different order. So, concerning this addition to the texts, Comparet says:

The first mention of this addition appears in the sixth century A.D., apparently just written in the margin as a comment in some Latin copies. Not one Greek manuscript, earlier than the sixteenth century contains it. Bible scholars are practically unanimous in their agreement that it was not in the original. Accordingly, it is omitted from most of the modern English translations such as the English Revised Bible, American Revised Bible, Moffatt, Ferrar Fenton, Smith & Goodspeed, Weymouth, Rotherham, Panin, New World Translation, etc.

The story of the Johannine Comma is actually a little more complex. The insertion appears in Latin manuscripts at an earlier time, but it does not appear in any Greek manuscript dating before the 16th century. But it is also said to appear in the Latin manuscripts of Clement of Alexandria. It should be omitted from all Bible translations. So Comparet continues:

How do we answer this question, are there three Gods, or only one? Only from the Bible, not from church hierarchies, can we hope to get the true answer. Naturally we first find it in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 6:4 records, “Hear O Israel! Yahweh our God is one God.” As always, this is confirmed in the New Testament, for Yahshua said in Mark 12:29, this was the first of the commandments. This doesn’t look much like a trinity, does it?

I think the most important point to consider in this light is that it would make no sense for this statement to appear at all if Christ had already existed as a distinct person who was also God. But the Geneva Bible has this passage from Deuteronomy somewhat more correctly to read “6:4 Heare, O Israel, The Lord our God is Lord onely”, and that is because the Hebrew, transliterating the important terms so that we understand what it says, reads: “6:4 Hear, O Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is One,” adding the verb “is” so that it makes sense in English. Comparet continues:

Let’s go on a little bit farther. According to the Trinitarians Yahshua, being the Son, is one of the three Gods. What does the Bible say about Him? Remember, all the churches agree that Yahshua is the Savior, so let’s find out who the Savior is. We find it first in Isaiah 43:10-11, “Ye are My witnesses, saith Yahweh, 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 be after Me. I, even I, am Yahweh; and beside Me there is no Savior.” Yahweh’s Bible is always consistent. In Hosea 13:4 we find, “Yet I am Yahweh thy God, from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but Me: for there is no Savior beside Me.”

Old Testament? Certainly, but listen to the New Testament. 1 Timothy 1:1 begins, “Paul, an apostle of Yahshua by the commandment of Yahweh [or God] our Savior and Lord Yahshua Christ, which is our hope.”

In my opinion, the phrase “God our Savior and Lord Yahshua Christ” and all similar constructions are Hebrew parallelisms: Yahshua Christ is Lord, God and Savior. Comparet continues:

In 1 Timothy 2:3 Paul says, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of Yahweh [God] our Savior.” But Paul isn’t the only one who says this. Jude 25 says, “To the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever.” We see that Yahweh is our Savior and [in Isaiah 43:11] He says, “Beside Me there is no Savior.” Therefore, since the churches agree that Yahshua is our Savior, He must be Yahweh Himself. This should not surprise anybody.

Isaiah 7:14 prophesied it, “Therefore Yahweh himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Emmanuel”, which means God with us.

This passage was cited in reference to Christ in Matthew 1:23: “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.”

Isaiah 9:6 makes it unmistakably clear, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulders: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty Yahweh, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”

Now Isaiah 9:6 may be a subject of controversy, where the Septuagint version of the passage is quite different. However the Dead Sea Scrolls, which very often agree with the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic Text, actually agree with the Masoretic Text for this passage of Isaiah, so we have reason to reject the Septuagint version. Continuing with Comparet:

The churches also agree that Yahshua is our Redeemer, but who is the Redeemer? Isaiah 43:14 speaks of Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah 44:6 continues, “Thus saith Yahweh, the king of Israel and his Redeemer.” Isaiah 48:17 records, “Thus saith Yahweh thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am Yahweh thy God.” Again we see that Yahshua must necessarily be Yahweh himself, for it is Yahweh who is our Redeemer. Then the apostle John calls Yahshua the Word. Who is the Word? John 1:1, 3 tells us, “in the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

This is not the Logos of Plato or of the later Neoplatonists like Plotinus. Rather, Christ being the Word made flesh is the same as that God who spoke at the beginning saying “Let there be...” as all things were made by Christ, so once again, Christ is Yahweh God who made all things. There is no room in this for a separate and distinct person who also holds the title of God. So Comparet returns to the new Testament:

Yahshua confirms this in John 8:19, “... if ye had known Me, ye should have known My father also.” In John 10:30, Yahshua says, “I and My Father are one.” John 12:45 continues, “He that seeth Me seeth Him that sent Me.” In John 14:6-9 we read, “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by Me. If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also: and from henceforth, ye know Him and have seen Him. Philip saith unto Him, Master, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Yahshua saith unto him, Have I been so long a time with you, and yet thou hast not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.”

The very next thing Yahshua said to Philip, which Comparet omits here, is actually an expression of dismay, as Christ asked him “and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?” As Paul wrote later, in his epistle to the Hebrews, Christ is the image of the person of God. But the Greek word for “express image” is not merely a reflection or a portrait. Rather, it is χαρακτήρ, or character.

So Comparet continues:

This leaves us only one remaining question. Is Yahshua the only God, just the Son of God, or just one God out of three? Never turn to the churchmen for the answer, why add their confusion to your own? You can only get the answer from the Bible, the word of Yahweh. Trinitarians speak of three Gods, consisting of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit was mistranslated Holy Ghost in the King James Bible. Let’s continue on and find out who these three are. First, let us define the words themselves. By definition, the father must be the one who begot the son. The son must be the one who was begotten. We have already seen that Yahshua is the Father as well as the Son. What of the Holy Spirit? The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit is the Father who begot the Son, Yahshua.

This also leaves the trinitarians in a conundrum. The Bible expressly states that Mary had conceived by the Holy Spirit. So how could Yahweh God be the Father, or how could the Father as one person of God be the father of Christ if Christ was begotten by the Holy Spirit as a different person of God? And then, as the Roman Catholics assert, how could the Holy Spirit form a person emanating from Christ, if Christ was actually fathered by the Holy Spirit?

At the website catholiceducation.org we read the following, in part: “The Father is from no one; the Son is from the Father only; and the Holy Spirit is from both the Father and the Son equally. God has no beginning; He always is, and always will be. The Father is the progenitor, the Son is the begotten, the Holy Spirit is proceeding. They are all one substance, equally great, equally all-powerful, equally eternal….” Then a little further on we read “The Father in eternally begetting the Son gave Him His own substance as the Son Himself testifies, ‘What my Father has given me is greater than all.’” Well, that is not quite what Christ had said, but more importantly, in the account of the Gospel, the Son was begotten by the Holy Spirit and not by the Father.

To try to make it work, the Roman Catholics insist that Christ existed in the Spirit as God the Son, equal with God the Father, before Christ was even born. However why, if Christ existed beforehand, would the Holy Spirit be needed to impregnate the woman? Then it was Yahweh God, the Father, who spoke of Himself in Isaiah chapter 40 and said “25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal?” It is also Yahweh who said “8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.” That word χαρακτήρ in Greek is an engraved image, but Christ is the character of the person of God, so He is God. The trinity doctrine is a failure, and in many more ways than that.

Continuing with Comparet, he describes the conception of the Christ child, where we have already repeated his arguments:

Matthew 1:20 reads, “But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of Yahweh appeared unto him in a dream saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary, thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” Luke 1:35 records, “And the angel answered and said unto her the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that the holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” The Holy Spirit is the one who begot the Son, and therefore, by the very definition of the word, the Holy Spirit is the Father.

In John 14:16-18, 26 Yahshua says, “I will pray the Father and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever: even the spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him, for He dwelleth in you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

So Comparet appropriately concludes:

Note this, the Comforter whom the Father will send is the Holy Spirit. Who is it that shall come as the Comforter? Yahshua said, “I will come unto you.” Therefore Yahshua being God, and also the Father, is also the Holy Spirit. This must be so, for we have seen that the Holy Spirit is the Father who begot the Son.

As we see in Comparet’s citation of Luke 1:35, the Holy Spirit is the “power of the Highest”, and not a separate person. But Christ is also the Holy Spirit as He Himself attested, and therefore both Christ and the Holy Spirit are manifestations of the same God, the Father, as He must also be the Father of Christ.

Returning to Comparet:

So, the trinity of three Gods boils down to just one God. A god who is spirit, the Holy Spirit. As the Holy Spirit, He begot a mortal body for His own use when He was to come as our Savior and Redeemer. In thus begetting the body, the Holy Spirit became the Father. He Himself inhabited that body which the Holy Spirit had begotten and in so doing became the Son. This was one person acting in three capacities.

Over the course of History, Yahweh God acted in more than three capacities, as the story of the Exodus shows that He was the pillar of fire, the burning in the bush, the rock in the desert, and more. But it is all One God, and One person, the Holy Spirit being His power and the Christ being His tabernacle.

Now Comparet turns to names:

Finally, what is His name? In nearly all our English language translations of the Bible, we find it written Jesus. We can be sure that this is not the name by which He was known when He lived among us in human form. Practically all of the English Bibles are translated from Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Greek was a foreign language to the people of Palestine. However, some of the better educated among the Palestinians spoke Greek in addition to their native language Aramaic.

The Greek manuscripts are translations of the original Aramaic, which was the language spoken by Yahshua and all His friends and disciples.

Here are two things with which I must contend. First, the apostles themselves called their language Hebrew, not Aramaic, or Syriac, which was known in Scripture from ancient times. But secondly, and more importantly, the original Greek manuscripts of the New Testament were originally written in Greek, and all of the known Aramaic translations are more recent. There are no Aramaic copies or versions which predate the earliest Greek and Latin copies. Additionally, there is much internal evidence which shows that they were all originally written in Greek, and are not translations from another language. Comparet continues:

In Greek Yahshua’s name was written lesous, and pronounced Ee-ay-sooce. That part of the Christian church which was in the western Roman empire, where Latin was the official language of government, as well as the native tongue of most of those who lived in Italy, eventually translated the Bible into Latin. The translations that were made by Jerome, about 400 A.D., became the official translation of the Roman Catholic Church.

In Latin, the Savior’s name is written either lesus, or Jesus and pronounced Yay-sooce. When the first English translations were made, the long familiar spelling Jesus was kept. This was not difficult because the letter “J” was for many centuries, just another form of the letter “I”, as it still is in the Germanic and Scandinavian languages. Early English had inherited this from its beginnings as the Anglo-Saxon language. Not until much later did the letter “J” develop its modern English sound.

This was the subject of one of my early papers: Yahshua To Jesus: Evolution Of A Name, where it is explained in much greater detail. Comparet continues:

As you learned in my lesson entitled, “Who Is Your God?”, the name of God in Hebrew is Yahweh. This also appears a number of times in a shortened form Yah. In Hebrew, Ho-shay-ah means Savior. You are familiar with it as the name of a prophet who wrote one of the books of the Old Testament. Our English translations pronounce it Hosea. By combining Yah (God) and Savior, the Hebrew name Yeh-ho-shoo-ah was formed, more familiar to us in the Anglicized form of Joshua.

The Hebrew form of Hosea actually means only salvation, where the Hebrew form of Joshua means Yahweh is Salvation, so Comparet is slightly confused. Furthermore, the spelling of the Hebrew form of Joshua in the Septuagint Greek is Ἰησοῦς, the same name as Christ in the New Testament, and that is a better determinant of how it was pronounced in Hebrew. I would reject Yehoshuah. Again continuing with Comparet:

There is every reason to believe this was the name of our Savior. He did come in the name of the Father, Yah, the short form of Yahweh, with the further statement that Yah was Savior. We note that Yahshua said in John 5:43, “I am come in My Father’s name.” When Yahshua entered the city of Jerusalem, on His last visit there, which led to His crucifixion, the people greeted Him with joyous enthusiasm, as recorded in Matthew 21:9. “And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried saying, Hosanna to the son of David: blessed is He that cometh in the name of Yahweh; Hosanna in the highest.”

Christ came in His Father’s Name, He was sent by the Father, and He repeated frequently that He came only to do the will of the Father. But He never expressed His Own Will, nor did He come in His Own Name, things which He may have done if He were an eternal, but separate and equal God, as the Romans Catholics claim. Continuing with Comparet:

Some people have said that lesous is the Greek equivalent of Yeh-ho-shoo-ah, but this is not true. The Greek equivalent, or translation of Yah-savior would be Yah-soter. In all cases where the translators took Hebrew or Aramaic names and tried to roughly translate them with Greek letters, they bungled the job very badly. There is not one Old Testament name which appears in the Greek New Testament in a form very similar to the original Hebrew. lesous is an attempt to write Yeh-ho-shoo-ah in Greek, botched as usual.

In my opinion, Comparet should have left this one alone. He is basically claiming that he knows how the name was pronounced in both Hebrew and Greek better than men who actually spoke both Hebrew and Greek! The form Ἰησοῦς is consistent for the Hebrew form of Joshua in both the Septugint and the New Testament, and we should accept that the apostles knew what they were doing when they used it in their gospels and epistles.

Now Comparet concludes:

To sum it all up, the Bible clearly proves that our Savior, Yahshua the Christ, was Yahweh. Yahweh had taken human form in order to make the sacrifice for our sins on the cross. He is the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Even His name in Hebrew and Aramaic, proclaims that He was Yahweh, God the Savior. Remember that Yahshua told His disciples, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” Yahshua will soon return to reign as King of Kings!! Then, we too will be able to see the Father.

And of course, with this we must agree. But to settle some other contentions concerning the nature of God in the Old Testament, we will share the notes which Clifton Emahiser had added to the end of this sermon, as Clifton saw that same subject needed to be addressed:

Many are confused with the Hebrew term elohim, believing that it is always plural. Now, that is true for the many pagan gods, but when elohim is used in conjunction with Yahweh, it is in every case singular. These are the grammatical rules for the Hebrew explained by Michael S. Heiser, PhD candidate, Department of Hebrew and Semitic studies, University of Wisconsin - Madison (Here are excerpts from Heiser’s work):

Heiser is a Jew, but his work in this area of grammar, which was also intended to oppose the lies of the fool Zechariah Sitchin, another Jew, is sufficient and fairly accurate, so now Clifton cites some of his statements:

“The word ‘Elohim’ CAN mean either plural ‘gods’ or singular ‘god’ (or ‘God’ as a proper name). The meaning of any occurrence of Elohim must be discerned in three ways: (1) Grammatical indications elsewhere in the text that help to determine if a singular or plural meaning is meant. (2) Grammatical rules in Hebrew that are true in the language as a whole. (3) Historical / Logical context. …

I would not say that God is a proper name, but if he had said “as a title” then I would agree.

“To continue - what I am saying is that, by itself, the word Elohim is ambiguous in meaning - as are all words, to some extent - it needs to be put into a sentence (I hope I don’t have to define ‘sentence’). We have words like this in English, such as: ‘deer’, ‘sheep’, ‘fish’ - the point is you need other words to help you tell if one or more than one of these animals is meant. Sometimes these other words are verbs that help you tell. Compare the two examples:

“1) ‘The sheep is lost’ - the word ‘is’ is a singular verb (It goes with a singular subject; one wouldn’t say, for example, ‘I are lost’ - you would use a verb that goes with the singular subject (‘I am lost’).

“2) ‘The sheep are lost’ - the word ‘are’ is a plural verb (again, another word next to our noun ‘sheep’ tells us in this case that plural sheep are meant.

“All of this is just basic grammar - and every language has grammar. Biblical Hebrew has its own ways of telling us if Elohim means ONE person or many gods. It matches the noun Elohim to singular or plural verbs, or with singular or plural pronouns (to use ‘sheep’ again as an example: ‘Those sheep are white’). The word ‘those’ is what’s called a demonstrative pronoun - it automatically tells us that sheep in this sentence is meant to be understood as a plural. ...

“Example #1 - Genesis 1:1: In the verse below, the noun אלחים (elohim) should be translated as SINGULAR because the verb with which it goes (i.e., it’s the subject of the verb) in the sentence is SINGULAR:

“Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth.

“אלחים (The verb bara’ is 3rd masculine singular of the Qal stem) ברא בראשית, God (elohim).

“In the beginning: God (elohim) created the heaven and the earth השמים ואת הארץ את.

“If the verb were plural, then we would be grammatically forced to translate ‘in the beginning, the ‘gods’ created the heaven and the earth.’ Grammar tells us which it is - singular or plural.

Heiser next cites:

“Example #2 - Psalm 82:1 - Elohim occurs twice, once as singular, the second time as plural:

“Ps. 82:1 *A Psalm of Asaph.* GOD (elohim) stands in the divine assembly; he judges among the gods (also elohim).

“בעדת־אל (this verb is singular) מזמור לאסף אלחים נצב Ps. 82:1 ישבט בקרב אלחים.

“We know the first elohim is singular because of grammar; it is coupled with a singular verb:

“The verbal form is a masculine singular participle (in the Niphal stem) נצב אלחים. Hence, ‘God’ stands ... (since the participle is singular).

“The second elohim form is plural because of grammar as well; it is placed next to a preposition that REQUIRES plurality.

“בקרב אלחים - The preposition here, beqereb, means ‘in the midst of’ - you can’t be in the midst of ONE person, and so a plural is required.

“Example #3 - the creation of humankind in Genesis 1:26-27. In Genesis 1:26-27, the GRAMMAR tells us Sitchin is wrong: Genesis 1:26-27 - (the words of the verse are underlined).

Of course, Adam kind is not humankind, but as I said, Heiser is a Jew, so his learning is corrupted with Jewish opinions. By Jewish reasoning, if Abraham was a Jew because he was an ancestor of Judah, then Adam would also have been a Jew, and “all humankind” would have to be Jews. But we shall complete Heiser’s last example:

“(26) ‘And God (אלחים; elohim) said ויאמר (wayyo´- mer’). (the verb is grammatically singular; Qal stem, 3rd masculine singular with attached preposition):

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness (these are references to God’s divine council - composed of the other elohim in Psalm 82:1 and angels - if you read The Facade, you’ll learn about the divine council) ...”

We do not necessarily have to agree with the opinion of the Divine Council in those precise terms, and we do not agree with the statement that Psalm 82 was referring to other gods, but rather, to the children of Israel as it was fulfilled in Christ. However the point is to prove that a singular elohim created man. Later and throughout Scripture, Yahweh God is credited for the entire Creation, but as Christ in the New Testament.

There are often protests, that Christ cannot be the same as the Father, based on things that He had done and said during His earthly ministry, even in spite of His many plain statements, because they appear to be contradictory. Yet in other aspects Christ had also spoken plain truths and the apostles did not understand what He was saying until after it happened, and this aspect is no different. For example, Christ explicitly told his apostles how He would be killed and resurrected, and they did not understand that until after the fact. So even though He also told them in many ways that He was God, they did not understand that until after the Resurrection.

So in John 8:28, Christ Himself had told His adversaries that once they crucified Him, it would be revealed that He is God, where we read in the King James Version: “28 Then said Jesus unto them, 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. 29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. 30 As he spake these words, many believed on him.”

Where Christ said “then shall ye know that I am he,” He was making a direct reference to the passages in Isaiah concerning the Redeemer. From Isaiah chapter 41: “4 Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.” And again from Isaiah chapter 43: “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. 12 I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God. 13 Yea, before the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it? ”

But at the same time, Christ always spoke as a man, as He continually referenced the Father even after His resurrection, but that does not mean that He is not also the Father. Yahweh God being almighty, if we really believe that He is, then we can accept that He can be whatever He so chooses to be, and that He can be both Father and Son, while there is only One God, and Yahshua Christ is the character of His person, a Greek word which actually means substance, as Paul explained in Hebrews chapter 1.

Then as Christ often used Himself to make examples of the attitudes which men should have, in Matthew chapter 19 we read: “16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? 17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” So this is also used as an example that Christ is distinct from God, that He was not “good”.

However it is only an example, that Christ did not want to be worshipped as a man, because the Scripture says in the 143rd Psalm, which Paul cited in Romans chapter 3, that “in thy sight shall no man living be justified.” But as we see in John chapter 20, the fact of the Resurrection is indeed the revelation that Christ is God. So in John 20:28 we read: “And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. 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.” So we read also in Matthew chapter 28, after His Resurrection, “16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. 17 And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.” Sadly, some of His people still doubt.

Another example of Christ speaking from the perspective of a man is found in John chapter 17 where we read: “4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. 5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” Christ being the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, as it is professed in the Revelation, this only refers to the foreknowledge of God, that He would enter His Own creation. We cannot interpret John 17:5 in a manner in which it conflicts with Isaiah 42:8, where we read in a prophecy of the Gospel itself: “8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.”

So in Revelation chapter 3 Christ had called Himself: “the beginning of the creation of God.” Yet the beginning of the creation of Yahweh, so far as it is illustrated in Scripture, is not some other god called the Son, but rather, it is the light of Genesis 1:3. That light is the Light come into the world which is the introduction of Yahweh, the invisible God, into the physical world as Yahshua Christ. The account of Creation in Scripture is not meant to be a scientific treatise, but rather, it is written in a way so as to attest to truths later revealed in the Gospel and Revelation of Christ.