One God Report

Many mainstream Christians claim that at death, only thebody dies while the soul lives on, consciously entering the presence of God. In this view, believers never really die—they skip over death entirely by transitioning instantly into eternal life.

There is no place in the Bible that defines death as the separation of the soul from the body.

So where did this concept come from?

Plato’s Influence: Not the Bible

The idea that "death is the separation of the soul from the body" comes from Greek philosophy, especially Plato.

In his dialogue Phaedo (also called On the Soul), Plato, through the voice of Socrates, taught that:

“Death is the separation of the soul from the body... and the state of being dead is the soul’s being alone by itself, apart from the body.”— Phaedo 64c, 67d

In this podcast we explore some implications of the Platonic "death is the separation of the soul from the body" claim on mainstream Christianity.

In this podcast we take a closer look at the historical context in which 1st century readers of John’s Gospel would have understood this Gospel to be about a new beginning. 

We will also see how other New Testament authors saw in Jesus a new beginning, the beginning of God’s new creation. 

Finally, we will note one big problem with the typical “deity of Christ” interpretation of John 1:1.

In previous episodes, we saw that no one in the Bible - notJesus, not Moses, not Isaiah or any other prophet, not Peter, not Paul or any other apostle – no one proclaimed or described that God is three in one.  Rather, we saw specifically that God is the Father alone, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We looked at Paul’s description of God and the Lord Jesus Christ in Ephesians 1.To Paul, God is not the Trinity, but the Father alone. And, Paul says the LordJesus Christ has a God. The Lord Jesus Christ’s God is the Father. The LordJesus Christ is not God since he has a God and Jesus is someone other than God.

00:00  God is Never a Trinity in the Bible.

03:14  God is always referred to with singular pronouns.HE did great things through Jesus Christ.  The Lord Jesus Christ is someone else, a different “person and being” thanGod.  

04:18  Typical Responses from the Previous podcast,and why they fall short. No one showed a place in the Bible where God is described or revealed to be a Trinity. Trinitarian apologists construct their god. 

Matthew 28:19, John 10:30, Genesis 1:26?

06:26  So much confusion in Trinitarian responses. Theimmediate “default” is to go to a few verses that Trinitarians think show that “Jesus is God”.

10:14  Trinitarian scholars who describe that theTrinity is not revealed in the Bible. “Can’t just rifle through the pages of the Bible in forming the doctrine (of the Trinity)”

11:55  Assembling the Trinity, the methodology is faulty. No one in the Bible does this.

14:08  Similarity between Trinitarian and modern “woke”usage of pronouns.  Denying reality and insisting on using a pronoun that does not apply.

16:07  Who to believe: Trinitarians or the Bible?  Stick with the Bible.

#trinity, #deityofchrist, #biblicalunitarian, #fredsanders, #jameswhite

Other RelatedPodcasts:

If the Bibleis Right, God is NOT a Trinity (Part 1)

In the Bible, God is never a trinity. Neither in Hebrew Scriptures, nor the New Testament is God ever a Trinity.

God is never declared to be triune by anyone in the Bible: not by Moses, the prophets, Jesus or the apostles. No one in the Bible ever mentions the “mystery” about the Triune nature (persons) of God.  The Bible never records any opposition to the Triune nature of God being proclaimed – because no one in the Bible proclaimed God as triune. The claim that God is “three-in-one” comes from centuries after the time of Jesus.

As a sample of the Biblical view of God, we read some of Ephesians 1.

Who is God in the passage? Never the Trinity.

Note the singular pronouns used of God. God is never more than one self.

Note the differentiation between God and the Lord (Adon) Jesus Christ.

Note that the Lord Jesus Christ has a God. The Lord Jesus Christ’s God is the Father.

For the Apostle Paul, the one God was not the Trinity. The one God was the Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 8:6).

Other related podcasts:

In this episode we explain how the deity-of-Christ interpretation of John’s Gospel is wrong.

Three, Yea verily Four Keys to Understanding John’s Gospel

1.       The Purpose statement of the author, John 20:30-31

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

The original target audience of the Gospel of John was Israelites in the Diaspora. John wrote to convince and help them to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  See more below.

2.      In John’s Gospel, Jesus declares that he is a man who told the truth which he heard from God.

John 8:40, “but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.”

Jesus differentiates himself from God. Jesus is a man, not a god-man, not one person of God who is incarnated in a human nature.  Jesus states that he is a human being, a man who declares the truth that heard from someone else, specifically, from God.

3.      In John’s Gospel, Jesus declared that the Father is the only true God.

John 17:1-3 “Father… this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.

The God that was speaking and working in and through the man Jesus was the Father.

Christology of John is agency, not incarnation.  Jesus as God’s unique human son was sent by God and as such represented God, is to be regarded as the very presence of God (the Father) who sent him.

4.      John is an Israelite, writing to Israelites. He is not writing originally to Gentiles.

a.      Metaphors, figurative language.

John 10:6 (context is the thief vs. the shepherd), “This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.”

John 16:25, "I have said these things to you in figures of speech.”

Come into the world, come down from heaven, “This is the bread that has come down from heaven” (6:50) “the bread I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (Joh 6:51) Jesus’ flesh literally descended from heaven?  

“The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from man” (Mar 11:30) means “Was John's baptism of heavenly or of human origin?”  (Mar 11:30)

b.      “Jews” means “Judeans”. “He came to his own, but his own received him not”. Samaritans, and Israelites in Galilee and Perea accepted him.

c.      “world” does not mean planet earth, but the Israelite world. The world that God loved (John 3:16), is Israel.

Resources:

In the Gospel of John the “Jews” are Judeans, Not All “Jews”

A brief description of four main beliefs of Biblical Unitarians.

1. God Is One, the Father.

·         Deuteronomy 6:4 “YHVH our God, YHVH is one”. Mark 12:32 “He (not they) is one.”

Christians often say, “Jesus paid the penalty for my sin”.

But we will be hard pressed to find that declaration in the Bible. Is such a declaration biblical, or does it stem from the traditions of men?

In this episode Kevin George, author of Atonement and Reconciliation: A Search for the Original Meaning, Contrasted with Penal Substitutionary Atonement, explains what Penal Substitution Atonement is and then some of the problems with Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

Stories of how former Trinitarians, Atheists and Jehovah’s Witnesses are coming to know and believe that God is the Father, and that Jesus is God’s human Son, the Messiah.

Dr. Tim Mackie appeared on the Transfiguration Podcast, describing some of his recent thoughts about the Trinity. In this video/podcast I review and point out some errors in Dr. Mackie’s claims.

0:00 Intro: Dr. Mackie’s search: How are Trinitarian expressions of God derived from the Bible?

02:20 Definition: What is the Trinity. Confusion between God as the Father alone, Trinitarianism, and Modalism. How many persons/selves is God?

08:03 Partial Knowledge. “Our knowledge of God will always be partial. The Trinity is a mystery.”

14:27 Progressive Revelation “Our knowledge of how many persons God is, was revealed progressively.”

24:00 Agency: the agent (one sent) of the sender is considered to legally be the presence of the sender.

26:14 How and When was the Trinity revealed? A couple New Testament references that supposedly hint that “Jesus is God”. Do Jesus’ miracles prove Jesus is literally God?

37:00 Any common ground between One-God-the-Father believers, and Trinitarians?  Different narratives.

40:41 A thank you and challenge to Dr. Mackie.

Resources:

Transfigured Interview: Tim Mackie - The Trinity, Hermeneutics & Doctrinal Development

1.      The claim is non-biblical, philosophical speculation.  This claim is not something argued or presented in the Bible.

2.      The Bible says exactly the opposite. The Bible says that Jesus had to be a man, a human being, not just a human nature, to bring about God’s plan of redemption for humanity. God was at work in and through the man Jesus of Nazareth. Who the man Jesus was and is, and what he did, was necessary, sufficient and acceptable to God.

Problems: The claim that Jesus had to be God to atone for sins is not only non-biblical, but it also leads to other, non-biblical, philosophical dead ends.
What deity of Christ folks are claiming is a penal substitution theory of atonement: somebody, or something else, a substitute, had to bear the penalty for my sin.

And that penalty is death. The claim is that instead of me, somebody else had to die for my sin. My sin is worthy of death, so, unless someone pays the death penalty, I will die. If someone else pays the penalty, then I don’t have to die. My sin is worthy of death, so that’s why a death is required for justice. Someone had to pay the death penalty – so instead of me, Jesus, who had to be God, paid that death penalty.

Now again, this is not a biblical claim. It is man’s philosophical speculation. And, I think that we can see that the Bible says something quite the opposite.

But even from a human or philosophical aspect, I think most people, if we think about it a little bit, can see the serious, non-biblical, theological, philosophical dead ends and inconsistencies with the claim.

Let’s say I murder someone. The biblical penalty for murder is death. I deserve death. I’ve been convicted in a court of law by jurors and a judge and sentenced to death. But my friend, Mike, right as the judge is about to strike the gavel down and send me off to execution, Mike stands up in the courtroom and shouts “Wait! Stop!”.  I’ll pay the penalty for Bill. Kill me instead!”

So, the judge says, “OK, the penalty for this crime is death. If you are willing to pay the penalty, come on over here. Executioners, take the handcuffs off Bill and put them on Mike. Mike, off to the electric chair. Bill, you are free to go!”  And everyone in the courtroom nods their head in agreement. That’s fair. The penalty was paid. The judge kept the ancient laws of justice. 

Nope. People realize such a tactic is perversion of justice, not a maintenance of justice.

For the “Jesus must be God to pay for sin” folks there is another step in their philosophical, non-biblical speculation. They start thinking: well, maybe one person could give his life to pay the penalty for another (even though they know that biblically – “the person who sins, he shall die” Eze. 18:20, even a father can’t be penalized for the iniquity of his son).

But our situation is not just one person for one person. The deity of Christ philosopher thinks, “Whoa, to pay the penalty for all sinners, for millions and billions of sinners, Jesus would have to be eternal God to be enough to do that”.

God died (again, in direct contradiction to the Scriptures). In the Bible God is immortal and does not die. Well, not all of God died. Only one person of God died. So God did but God did not die.

“And death is only the separation of the soul from the body. One person of God, or the soul/spirit of that one person, had taken on a human nature. So the spirit didn’t die, just the human nature.”

Some comments:

1.      A person-less human nature (whatever that is) was enough to redeem all the multitude, millions, billion from their sin?

Resources:

Most scholars say the Gospels were not written until the mid AD 60s. Is that right? 

This podcast describes why they think that, and gives suggestions as to why the Gospels may have been written much earlier.

Some Biblical Unitarians (believers in the One God, the Father), don’t see the man Jesus in the first verses of John’s Gospel. Instead, they understand the Word/Logos” as an abstract plan, design, promise or wisdom that is only personified (described as if it were a person).   

Trinitarian “diety-of-Christ” and “Arian” believers likewise don’t see the human person, the human being Jesus of Nazareth in the first verses of John’s Gospel. They see only a “divine being/person who became flesh” – but this podcast is not directed toward them. They have bigger problems.

This podcast should challenge believers in One God, the Father, to see that the “personified plan, purpose, wisdom” interpretation of John’s Prologue falls short. 

I asked fourteen One God, the Father believers who have lectured or written about their abstract personification interpretation of John’s Prologue, this question:

“At what place in John 1 do you first see the man Christ Jesus of Nazareth or his ministry, either metaphorically or literally, being the subject?“

Their answers should be enlightening.

Other resources mentioned in this podcast:
Perry, Andrew. John 1:1-18 A Socinian Approach

“They believe in God. They believe in Jesus. They believe in the Holy Spirit. But they don’t believe in what is considered the most important doctrine of them all…they don’t believe in the Trinity.

“If you are a Christian, what you were taught about the Trinity is probably wrong.

“If you’ve ever wondered exactly how Christians have come to what might seem to be a strange interpretation of the nature of God, this book should provide you with a crystal-clear look into the study and understanding of how and why many believers insist that God is one and not three.

#forrestmaready, #trinity, #deityofchrist, #walkaway

Why Some Christians Don’t Believe in the Trinity

When Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), was he claiming to be God?

No. We see Jesus use the same language of more than one person being “one” in John 17:11, indeed of believers being “one” with both Jesus and the Father. What he means is a one-ness of purpose and intention, a one-ness of unity toward the same goals.

Was it the God Jesus who prayed, “Now, Father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world came to be.”  No. Rather this was the prayer of the man Jesus the Christ expressing his faith in the pre-determined promise of God.  Expressing trust in God’s promise, Jesus was speaking of a future reality as if it had already happened.

We see in John 17:20-24 that the Father GAVE to Jesus glory before the foundation of the world, that Jesus already had been given that glory when he was speaking, and that he already gave the same glory to others who had not yet believed in him.

Additional resources:

In this episode our guest, theological author and blogger, Troy Salinger, shows that the biblical metaphors “to come from heaven”, “to come from above” and “to come from God” are to be understood figuratively and apply to John the Baptist (and other Old Testament prophets) as well as to Jesus. 

When referring to human beings, these figures of speech do not mean to literally descend from some existence in heaven.  Rather, the figures refer to humans being commissioned, instructed, authorized and empowered by God.
In his exposition of John 3:31-36, Salinger shows the context of “coming down from heaven” relates to the testimony of John the Baptizer and Jesus on the one side (“from heaven”), in contrast to the Judean religious authorities on the other side (“of the earth”).

In this episode we continue our countdown of the top 10 New Testament verses that show that Jesus is NOT God. Verses in this episode include:

(5.5)    1Corinthians 15:21

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

5.   Acts 17:31

“…because He (God) has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead." (Act 17:31 RSV)

4.   Acts 2:22, 36

"Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know…
Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."

3.   1 Timothy 2:4-5

God… “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”

2.   1 Corinthians 8:6

Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all and through whom we exist.

1.   John 17:3

“Father….this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Compare John’s purpose statement: John 20:30-31: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;  but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.”

“Consolation” Verses:
Many verses which declare that God, someone other than Jesus, raised the Lord Jesus from the Dead, e.g.,

1 Cor. 6:14, Romans 10:9

“And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.”

Romans 10:9

“…believe in your heart that God raised him (the Lord Jesus) from the dead”

Acts 5:30

The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.

Matthew 24:36

“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”

John 14:28 (10:29)

“The Father is greater than I”

#deityofchrist, #newtestament, #biblicalunitarian, #unitarian, #billschlegel

In this two part episode we look at 10 verses from the New Testament which give direct evidence that Jesus is NOT God.

Many Christians have heard of a few verses that supposedly declare that Jesus IS God, but few Christians have heard about verses that show that Jesus is NOT God.

In this episode we examine five (OK, plus) verses:

10.  2 Cor. 1:3, Eph. 1:3, 1 Pet. 1:3, Rom. 15:6 The Lord Jesus Christ has a God

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort”

Ephesians 1:17

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, (Eph 1:17 NRS)

Revelation 3:12

The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.

9.    John 20:17

“I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."

8.     Mark 12:29-33 whereJesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:4

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength…”

(Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one).  “He is one, there is no other but he, and to love him…”

7.    John 8:40

“…but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.”

6.    Romans 5:15

But the gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.

Resources:

This episode has two parts:

Part 1, I ask a question about the objectives of the Hamas attack.

October 7, 2023—a date which will live in infamy— Israel was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the militant, terrorist forces of Hamas, the Islamic organization in authority in the Gaza strip.

Part 2 of the Podcast, Reading the New Testament without Trinitarian Glasses

I look at the first eight verses of the Book of Revelation as an example of reading a New Testament text without the presuppositions and prejudices of Trinitarian belief.

We discover that in the biblical text Jesus is not the LORD God Almighty, who was and is and to come.  Rather, Jesus is the faithful witness who died is the first-born from the dead.  Jesus’ God is the Father, the LORD God Almighty who is and was and is to come.

Who is Denying Christ – Me or a Person who Believes that “Jesus is God”?

When I first came to understand that the man, the human person Jesus of Nazareth, is God’s Christ (the Messiah המשיח), the human Son of God, quite a few of my former Trinitarian and deity-of-Christ-believing friends accused me of “denying Christ”.

Here I was confessing and proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ, yet many people were saying I was denying Christ!

A faith journey. How I was introduced to Christianity, became a teacher in a Christian college in the Land of Israel, and came to understand that the God of the Bible is not three-persons-in-one-being.

I believe in God (the Father) and in Jesus the Son of God (the Messiah), and in the spirit of God - but I'm not a Trinitarian.

For the full text of this episode see here:

https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2023/09/walk-away-why-i-am-not-trinitarian.html

Other resources mentioned in this episode:

Biblical Unitarian Christian Alliance conference:

https://www.unitarianchristianalliance.org/registration-is-open-uca-conference-october-19-21-2023/

Satellite Bible Atlas

https://www.bibleplaces.com/satellite-bible-atlas-schlegel/

Revised English Version

https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Gen/1/nav1

This is part 3 of a three-part series with Dr. Dustin Smith, Pre-Millennial or A-Millennial

In this episode Dr. Smith describes the “Tale of Two Cities”. Like the original readers of the Book of Revelation, readers even now are challenged to associate with, indeed be part of, the godly New Jerusalem and not ungodly Babylon.

In a similar metaphor, readers of Revelation are encouraged associate with, indeed be part of the Bride of Christ, which is the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2, 10-11) and not with the Harlot, which is ungodly Babylon (Rev. 17:4-6).

Dr. Smith examines the 1000 years mentioned in Revelation 20. He understands the 1000 years to be symbolic of a significant time period that has a definite fixed end. Satan is bound for followers of God and Jesus, but at the same time rampant in the world outside. Similarly, in Jesus’ Parables of the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 13) good and evil co-existence for a period of time until the fixed day of separation and judgment.

Biblical Unitarian Podcast, Host Dr. Dustin Smith

Dr. Dustin Smith is currently Professor of Theological Studies at Reformed University near Atlanta, Georgia. Among other writings, he is co-author of the book "The Son of God: Three Views on the Identity of Jesus" and he is the host of the Biblical Unitarian Podcast.

The pre-millennial view of the return of Christ holds that the unrighteous are judged 1000 years after the righteous. In this episode, Part 2 of our discussion, Dr. Smith gives biblical evidence that the righteous and unrighteous will be judged at the same time – when Jesus returns and raises the dead – not separated by a period of 1000 years.

Scriptures referred to in this episode:

Matthew 13:30, 39-43, the Kingdom of Heaven Parable of the Wheat and Tares and its Explanation

Matthew 13:49-50, the Kingdom of Heaven Parable of the Dragnet

Acts 17:40-41, “God has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man…”

Matthew 25:31ff, The Parable of the Separation of the Sheep and Goats at the Return of Jesus

Matthew 7:21-24, “Not all who say to me ‘Lord, Lord’ shall enter the kingdom

Matthew 12:41ff, “The men of Nineveh…and the Queen of the South shall rise up with this generation…”

Revelation 11:15-18, “The kingdoms of the world have become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ”

Biblical Unitarian Podcast, Host Dr. Dustin Smith

Dr. Dustin Smith is currently Professor of Theological Studies at Reformed University near Atlanta, Georgia. Among other writings, he is co-author of the book The Son of God: Three Views on the Identity of Jesus" and he is the host of the Biblical Unitarian Podcast.

In this first of a series of three One God Report podcast episodes, Dr. Smith describes some differences between pre-millennialism and a-millennialism. Eventually we are leading up to the question: is the 1000 years in Revelation 20 to be understood as a literal 1000 years, or does the 1000 years symbolically represent something else?
Dr. Smith makes these points in the current episode:

Both pre-millennial and a-millennial views see two levels, or two tiers, two time-periods to the kingdom of God.

For pre-millennialism the two tiers are:

1) after the physical return of Jesus, a literal 1000-year rule of Christ on earth, and then

2) the eternal kingdom which begins after the 1000 years.

For amillennialism:

1) the kingdom of God and of His Christ has already been inaugurated with the coming of Jesus and his ascension to heaven at the right hand of God. And

2) the eternal kingdom is consummated when Jesus physically returns to earth. The amillennialism that Dr. Smith describes believes that Jesus will physically rule over a kingdom on earth, just not for an intermediate 1000-year period. Rather, Jesus’s return is the transition to his to an eternal rule on earth.

In this podcast Dr. Smith begins to explain some problems with the pre-millennial view.

1) Pre-millennialism maintains that even after Jesus returns and raises the dead, some non-believers, that is, mortals, will enter the millennial kingdom. But biblically, there are considerable problems not only with mortals entering the kingdom of God, but with people continuing to die after the resurrection which accompanies the second coming of Christ (Matt 25:46; 1 Cor 15:23-26, 54-55; 2 Tim 1:10; Rev 21:4).

2) Pre-millennialism maintains that the resurrection of the just precedes by 1000 years the resurrection of the unjust, that is, the righteous are resurrected when Jesus returns, but the unrighteous 1000 years later. But in the Bible the resurrection of the just and the unjust always occurs at the same time, (e.g., Dan 12:2; Matt 12:41-42; John 5:28-29; Acts 24:15; Rev 11:15-18). Specifically, the resurrection of all the dead occurs at the return of Jesus (1 Thes. 4:13-17).

Biblical Unitarian Podcast, Host Dr. Dustin Smith

I interview six different people in Israel to answer these questions:

Who is God and how do you know?

Who is the Messiah and what is his relationship to God?

Is there are specific Scripture or two that explain your view of God or the Messiah?

The people interviewed include:

02:28 Yaakov (Yaaki), a more or less secular Israeli who became a public high school Bible teacher.

09:00 Elena, who immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union.

12:24 Moses (Moshe), a Jewish believer in Jesus who parents were Holocaust survivors.

18:52 Shaaban, a Muslim Arab (not Israeli).

22:30 A group of religious Jewish men.

26:14 Jonathan, an American Israeli Jew who believes in One God (the Father) and the human Messiah Jesus.

Bill Schlegel YouTube Channel:

This episode is a review of the recently published paperback edition of the book called, The Restitution: Biblical Proof that Jesus is not God, by Kermit Zarley*.

What? Biblical proofs that Jesus is NOT God? The average Christian has heard only the biblical proofs that supposedly declare that Jesus IS God.

But anyone who thinks that the Bible claims that God is a Trinity, or that the Bible claims that Jesus Christ is God, should read this book. The Restitution: Biblical Proof that Jesus is NOT God is a comprehensive study of biblical Christology. What does the Bible say about who or what Christ (Messiah) is? For some 1700 years Christian churches have answered that question by saying that Jesus is God, or a God-Man. Zarley challenges that answer. He maintains that the biblical view is not “God is Christ”, but “God in Christ”.

That is, the One God of the Bible, Yahweh, worked in and through His human Messiah, Jesus, to reveal Himself to mankind (John 1:18, Heb. 1:1), and to reconcile the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19).

There is a popular declaration among Christians the world over this time of year. Quoting the messenger at Jesus’s tomb the declaration is made, “His is risen!” And then people respond: “He is risen indeed!”. 

But that English declaration is actually incorrect, or is an incorrect translation. The angelic declaration about Jesus is not about what Jesus did, but about what someone else, namely God, did to Jesus. In Greek, the declaration is a passive.  Jesus was acted upon. He received the action of the verb in the sentence. A more correct declaration is “He has been raised!” or, “He was raised”.  That is, someone else raised Jesus.

For full text notes of this episode, click here:

https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2023/04/he-has-been-raised-he-has-been-raised.html

_

 Did God Die

In Part 1 (the previous episode, #92) I began to respond to some of the claims made in the One for Israel video called “The Trinity and the Torah, a Jewish Defense of the Trinity”. I noted that the so-called “mysterious unity of (one-God-in-three-persons) is not a biblical mystery, but is a man-made mystery that comes from centuries after the Bible was written, from Gentiles land outside of the Land of Israel.

Also, that the idea of agency is a much better way to understand how God’s messengers can speak and act for God.  God’s agents or messengers even speak in the first person as God, as they are delegated and authorized by God to do so. When God’s messengers speak, God speaks.

In the current episode:

01:00  Appealing to Dr. Benjamin Sommer. The necessity to appeal to Dr. Sommer’s ideas for evidence of more one person in God is an admission that the Bible makes no such declaration.

02:47  An example of an essential biblical truth, which unlike the doctrine of the Trinity, is directly and consistently described in the New Testament: that God raised the man Jesus from the dead.

04:54  Since a multi-person God is not declared in the Bible, people, including Gentile Christians, long for some scrap of “Jewish” evidence that God can be multi-personal. This the appeal to Dr. Sommer.

06:06  Who is Dr. Benjamin Sommer? His views on the authority and origin of Scripture, the Documentary Hypothesis, and the Bodies of God. Dr. Sommer’s view is closer akin to Modalism or Hinduism.

12:32  Is the Trinity in the Old Testament? What about Genesis 1:26? Does anyone in the New Testament go to the Old Testament to find evidence that God is triune?

14:54  Is the Trinity in the New Testament? Constructing a god from hints and clues, first finding verses that allegedly claim that Jesus is literally a second deity figure. What about John 1? Romans 10:9, 1 Cor. 8:6 - verses appealed in the One for Israel video do not declare that God is triune, and in fact, declare that the Father is the one God.

19:37  Are Israeli Jewish believers in Jesus Trinitarians? Most would say no. The deceptive bait and switch: finding evidence in the Bible that Jesus is the Messiah, but then insisting that Jesus is literally God.

22:40  A Trinity claim is an attempt to denigrate the only True God, the Father. A challenge from Deut. 32:6, Malachi 2:10 and John 17:1-3

For an analysis of the Documentary Hypothesis, see:

0:00  Introduction. One For Israel, my own interest in Israel and the Jewish People

1:00  Why is “The Trinity in the Torah” a “hot topic”? Because the Torah does not proclaim that God is triune. There is no declaration in the Bible where the God of Israel says, “I am three persons in one”. If there was such a declaration, there would be nothing to argue about.

Which Stumbling Block?

The One For Israel video states that the “stumbling block” for the Jews is the Trinity, the deity of Christ and “incarnation” of one God person of a tri-personal god.  But such things are a non-biblical stumbling block to Jewish faith in the Messiah. These are post-biblical, man-made stumbling blocks that Jewish people are completely right in rejecting.

These man-made stumbling blocks prevent Jewish people from hearing and being confronted with the true New Testament declaration about the Messiah, Yeshua. As the Apostle Paul declared, the stumbling block for the Jews is “Christ crucified”. The biblical proclamation is that the Messiah was put to death, but was raised from the dead and exalted by God to God’s right hand. There is nothing in the New Testament about Jews not accepting the Trinity or incarnation of one divine person of a tri-personal God.

05:49  The “Mysterious Unity of God” which the One For Israel video repeatedly discusses is likewise a non-biblical mystery, entirely foreign to the Bible.

9:09  AGENCY: The biblical principal of “the messenger represents the one who sent him” (agency) is a much better way to understand the few passages that are put-forth as an attempt to show that there is a “mysterious unity of (more than one person who is) God”. Many Christians, including Messianic Jews who believe in the “deity of Christ” are not familiar with the concept of agency. Once agency is understood, the fog of the so-called “mystery” is lifted.

19:09 Summary. The Mystery Solved and Agency

22:09 Looking forward to Part 2 One For Israel: The Trinity and the Torah, a Jewish Defense of the Trinity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7D2djAnAbI&t=146s