God Is Not Three Persons

Believers in the living God, Creator of the Heavens and the earth know that man was created in the image of an unfathomable God. Many people believe that bearing the Imago Dei means we are a tripartite unification of mind, body, and spirit. This goes hand in hand with the trinitarian doctrine they have been taught and probably continue to teach. Though the concept of a Trinity can help us to remember that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Bible never mentions a trinity. This same doctrine can also complicate things for most believers. No verse in the bible speaks of a Trinity or conveys the message that God is three persons. I recall the famous hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy,” in which the LORD God is worshipped and referred to as a “God in three persons” and a “blessed trinity.”

It’s a beautiful song, but for some time, it confused me. I have no doubt this hymn has contributed to mass confusion within the church. It is based on a doctrine that fails to harmonize various passages of scripture in which the very God who claims to be one God seemingly consists of three persons in one. Since the song refers to Him using three of His primary titles—(those of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), many believers treat Him as three entities of the same frequency, nature, and accord. The truth is He is one entity (God) with the ability to exist in any form He pleases. He is the omnipotent Yahweh, who is also called the Everlasting Father, the Son of the Most High, and the same Holy Spirit that overshadowed Mary and caused her to conceive Jesus. That same spirit filled the otherwise lifeless body of Christ, bringing him to life. Did you know it is the breath of life (the spirit) God blew into the nostrils of all creatures that makes them living souls (or in Hebrew, “nephesh”)? Without it, they would be lifeless heaps of flesh.

Jesus was God dwelling among men (in a physical form they could see), but since He was born into human flesh, we call the one who caused Him to be, the “Father” of Christ. In perhaps the greatest paradox that exists, the Spirit that dwelt in Jesus was the Holy Spirit of God, the very same that overshadowed Mary. If Jesus is also God, then God became His own Father when the spirit of the invisible “Father” entered into the baby Jesus. Thus, Christ became “the image (or visible representation) of the invisible God.” Those who saw Jesus saw God. To make this simpler to understand, imagine an invisible entity that could interact with our world. No one could see it until it entered a vessel or “vehicle,” such as a car. Whenever it entered into a car and started driving, you could see where it was headed. Still, you could not see the being itself, but you knew where it was when you saw the vehicle being driven.  This by the by is how our invisible spirits drive our bodies in the physical realm.

To better understand how the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit relate to one another, let’s first understand what God created in Mary’s womb. God designed a machine of flesh through which He could visibly demonstrate His love for us and His divinity. The human body, when we appreciate it the way we should, is a marvel of engineering. It is a bipedal machine with sensors and processing capabilities that far exceed those of modern robots. In other words, the field of robotics is not even close to designing a machine that can ever put any of God’s designs to shame. For what robot can self-repair or even fight infection (malware) with anything close to our immune responses? Which man-made robot can balance itself while regulating the flow of billions of bits of information per second with unparalleled fidelity and virtually no lag? According to thehealthy.com, “A single neuron can send as many as 1,000 nerve impulses per second. A healthy human brain has about 200 billion neurons. That adds up to 12,000,000,000,000,000 signals being sent throughout your brain.” If that number’s hard to read, I’ll make it easier. That’s an estimated 12 quadrillion signals per second! We have about 100-150 thousand hairs on our heads, and each grows about a half-inch per month. Collectively, hair grows 1.1 inches per minute,
while the average human interval of blinking is 15-20 times per minute. In the interim, our mouths constantly produce saliva which breaks down food and keeps the mouth infection-free. While all of that’s happening, our bodies perpetually monitor how much water we’re losing and how much needs to be restored. The heart beats without interruption. The body produces millions of cells. It filters 1.2 liters of blood per minute through the kidneys and competely filters our blood more than 30 times per day! As if all that isn’t impressive enough, the brain regulates hormones and carries on so many functions without skipping a beat (pun intended)! We are, as the Bible says, “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Let’s get back to Christ.

When the invisible driver (the Holy Spirit of God) entered the machine that would become Jesus, to be born into this world as a human being (or human interface), the body that Mary had given birth to, immediately became God’s “son” because God planted the seed within Mary for her to conceive a Holy child in which He (the spirit of God) would dwell. God has no beginning of days, nor end of days, but since Jesus (despite having the eternal consciousness of God) was born, He took on the title of “Son.” Jesus was born, and yet the Bible also says He is the firstborn of all creation (therefore, He existed long before his birth on earth). Even so, He was the Word who was in the Beginning with God and was God. We know God was never mute. Being eternal and all-powerful, the Word (which had power in itself) was always with Him.

As God operated the body of our Messiah, Jesus’ visible flesh allowed His disciples to glimpse what the otherwise invisible God was doing on earth. Recall the example I gave of an invisible driver operating a car. Under normal circumstances, a spirit itself is imperceptible, but we can, in a sense, see them in all living creatures when we perceive the living creatures in the physical realm. Though we can not see their spirits, we know exactly where they are in 3D space.

Nowadays, most Christians who believe in a Trinity imagine God as three distinct members of a singular Godhead who agree in perfect harmony. However, the LORD our God is one “Hear O Israel!” If God is Spirit (and His worshippers must worship in spirit and truth), then taking God’s titles of “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” to mean God is three persons of one accord contradicts the one-ness of God. This is not to suggest I’m part of a “Oneness movement.” I just read the Bible as it is written. When Jesus said “I and the Father are one”, He was not being figurative. Our Heavenly Father is already a spirit. He is the life-giving spirit of Holiness, which vivified the material body of Christ in which it then inhabited for 30+ years. Therefore, both God, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are Spirit. Is God (the Father) not the Holy Spirit? If not, what would that make Him? Additionally, if during the ministry of Jesus, the Holy Spirit wasn’t on earth yet because He had not ascended, what spirit was in Christ the Savior? Was it not the Holy Spirit of God? The Bible tells us that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit poured out without measure.

The doctrine of the Trinity is fundamentally unsound. In fact, it is potentially a false teaching. Anyone who has been properly baptised in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as scripture instructs was baptised in the name of Jesus. The Bible says they have one name. Therefore, they were baptised in the name of “God is salvation,” for that is what Yeshua means.

Trinitarianism is unbiblical, yet it has become a shaky cornerstone in the faith of most Christians. The Bible never claims God is three. Instead, it reiterates time and again that God is one. So where did we get the notion of multiple members of the Godhead? It came from pure misinterpretation and the influence of “orthodox Christianity which is a derivative of Catholicism.

In the book of John, in the first chapter, it is written: “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God…”. So it would seem as though there were two entities (the first being God and the second being “the Word”—who was with God)…right? But remember, we should live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God because every word and every sentence matters! The Bible becomes clear when we learn to harmonize it such that the contradictions arising from our misconceptions are resolved. That same passage of scripture we just read in John Chapter 1, verse 1 continues by adding, “and the Word was God.” Therefore, while it would initially seem as though there were two, they were, in fact, one! John Chapter 1 further continues saying “He (referring to “the Word”) was in the beginning with God and created everything, and the Word (which was God) became flesh (in the form of Jesus Christ who was also called “Emmanuel” meaning “God with us”) and (this Word who became flesh) dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory as of the only begotten son of God.” This is a summary of John chapter 1 verses 1-14. The passage explains that God and Jesus are, in fact, the one true God.

Many other verses support this, such as Isaiah 9 verses 6-7, which say, “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Now, why would a child be named”Mighty God” and “Everlasting Father”? How can a human child be the everlasting Father? Or how about Hebrews Chapter 1 verses 8-12 which read:

But to the Son He says:

“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever;
A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”
And:
“You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain;
And they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will fold them up, And they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will not fail.”

This passage clearly shows that God calls His own Son, “God” and acknowledges Him as the LORD of Creation. Why would God call a human being “God”? Remember that Jesus Christ was 100% human on the outside with the Holy Spirit of God within Him making Him fully God inside. If we view the Holy Spirit as merely “the Comforter,” as many do, then we limit its role and forget it acted otherwise when it came upon Mary, the mother of Jesus, and when the power of the Highest, which is in the Holy Spirit overshadowed her. Jesus (the man) was called the Son of God because God’s spirit entered His body of flesh, which had been prepared within Mary’s womb. Therefore, He became His own son because He was physically born among humans, though spiritually and essentially, He had always existed as God “

There are still several other scriptures that support the fact that God is not three, but hopefully, I can rest my case here. There is no trinity. We serve ONE God who so happens to be Father, Spirit, and Son. He is the great I AM. He can be what we need Him to be. Therefore, from His perspective, He can say: I AM Provider (Yahweh Jireh), I AM Healer (Yahweh Rapha), I AM Peace (Yahweh Shalom), and even, I AM the Savior the Messiah (Yeshua HaMashiach). God is the ultimate Father of all human beings, including the man called Christ Jesus, who was only born in human flesh so that He could die for our sins. In a divine body, He would have remained immortal and unkillable as Melchizedek, who has no beginning of days nor end of days.

God is a holy spirit (refer to John 4:24). He is not man (as Numbers 23:19, and Hosea 11:9 explain). His Holiness is written of in Leviticus 19:2. Therefore, is it a far stretch to say He is the Holy Spirit? Not at all! If God is the Holy Spirit (and He most certainly is), and the Holy Spirit was in Christ without measure or limit (John 3:34), then Christ was indeed the fullness of God in a human being. God, who is everywhere, can also be His own son because nothing is impossible for God. If He chose to be every player on a baseball team, He could be just that. If the Holy Spirit can be in every born-again believer at the same time, which is possible, is it tough to imagine the Holy Spirit was on the earth (in Christ) and also in Heaven (as the Father who Christ prayed to)? Remember, Jesus was God in the beginning, according to John 1, but He also came to fulfill the law, and how could He fulfill the first commandment if He didn’t submit to God? In a sense, He submitted to Himself. Still, again, God calls Jesus (who is God), “God”…and every member of my illustrated baseball team would likewise be called “God,” including Yahweh Pitcher and Yahweh Batter (we can have a little fun with this).

So how do we harmonize it all? Well, Jesus is the Everlasting Father who fashioned a mortal (therefore killable) body for Himself to reconcile the world to Himself. After all, the Bublr tells us that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself! God provided the lamb who is said to have been “slain from the foundation of the world.” Remember, He is the Provider. He is the Savior. He is the Son and yet the Mighty God. He is our healer, and by His stripes, we are Healed. He is the resurrection and the life; that very same life He initially gave Adam and Eve and will restore to the saints when He returns. He is Spirit and a Holy and Righteous Spirit at that! In fact, in His most genuine form, Jesus isn’t just God who is a Holy Spirit, but He is the Holy Spirit of God that dwelt within the human vessel the world knew as Jesus so that He could be the visible image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15).  When we are in Christ, the spirit of Christ (that is the spirit of the savior) is in us.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this John Chapter 1 verse 3 says of Jesus “All things were made through Him and without Him, nothing was made.” If we revisit Genesis Chapter 1, we will read, “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth” We know God is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. The Mighty God, the Everlasting Father. He is His Son, and also the Holy Spirit.

Finally, in the book of Revelations, Jesus says words that only the Everlasting God could say. He says in Revelations 22:13:

“I am the Alpha (not the Beta) and Omega, the first and the last.” With that, He rests His case that He is Yahweh (in bodily form)!