The Trinity doctrine confuses the understanding of monotheism
Although Trinitarians theoretically acknowledge that God is One, practically speaking, it can only confuse and diminish the understanding of monotheism, which should be the cardinal criterion by which any such teaching is tested. Fourteen times in Isaiah alone the oneness of God is expressed, e.g., Isaiah 43:10,11:
"Before Me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the LORD, And besides Me there is no savior." In Deuteronomy 6:4 He says, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!"]
Making Christ a God-Man defies logic and harms our appreciation of him
The term, God-man, used so frequently of Christ, should be examined, both from the standpoint of scripture and of logic. The attributes of God and of Man are opposed to each other. Consider each. God--all powerful, all knowing, unchanging, holy, eternal. Man--dependent, limited in knowledge, variable, mortal. Christ could not be both God and man. However, He could, as man, be indwelled by God, allowing him and his Father both to retain their own unique attributes.
Was there a need for the God the Son of the Trinity to indwell Him? How? Why? Was not being indwelled by his Father enough? Certainly, scripture never mentions God the Son, and Christ always affirmed His union with God the Father. What need or place for any God the Son? There is none. When we view Christ as solely man, with no other advantage than being born with a heart for God, we gain a more accurate picture of what God has called man to be.
Is this to say that Christ cannot rightfully be called God? Certainly not. He was God’s chosen one destined from eternity in God’s plan to reconcile the world unto Himself and to rule the world during the Millennium. Although not divine in himself as a man, Christ was in a living, inseparable union with his Father who was his life. As I Thes. 5:23 makes clear, in his humanity Christ consisted of body, soul, and spirit, each essential and inseparable from his person: and his spirit was in union with the Spirit of God. In the very beginning God had determined to express Himself by the man Jesus Christ. We see that the Gospel presents us with a TEAM—God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You can’t have one without the other! Just as Christ was essential to God in expressing His invisible nature, so God was essential to Christ for His divinity.
No one can come to the Father but by the Son, who is the perfect expression of God and who, because of his obedience even unto the Cross, has been given all power and authority by God. We remember in the Old Testament how Joseph for his obedience to Pharaoh was given the Pharaoh’s ring whereby he could rule with all authority. An order by Joseph was as if Pharaoh had demanded it. Do we not see how it prefigured Christ as Lord of lords and King of Kings? Christ cannot be spoken of as separate from His Father; he is not only man, he is a man made one with His Father. He is the firstborn of many brethren so that we may walk as Christ walked—in dependence upon our Father.
No need to invent a God the Spirit
The third person of the trinity, God the Spirit, was not mentioned in the initial conclusions originating at the Council of Nicea, but was added later. John 4:24 declares that "God is Spirit." Where is the need for a second Spirit, when God the Father is quite adequate? God is called by many names; so, too, He is, as Spirit, known by various names. If we look upon God the Father and His Spirit as one and the same, we are scriptural and we eliminate confusion.
The Failure of illustrations to prove the Trinity
To explain how three separate persons identified as being God—equal with God, separate from each other, yet all one God—various illustrations have been used. A common one is H20 which, as we know, can take the form of either a liquid, solid or vapor. The problem is that the different forms cannot exist simultaneously at the same time, which is what the Trinity teaching of three persons being one insists. This is true of other such illustrations as well. There is a sense in which such illustrations are acceptable if it is meant to show how God can express Himself in different roles in different instances as Father, Son and Spirit. The very word persona derives from a time when actors wore masks to portray different roles in a play. No quarrel here.
God has revealed Himself as Father/Son
In eternity past before creation, God determined exactly how He would express Himself by condescending to a level we can understand. The invisible, unchanging God would reveal Himself through a visible man. Standing outside of time, God pointed to this man throughout the Old Testament by means of many instances, types, prophecies, and even narratives between Himself and the man. God not only wrote the script; he played the parts and spoke the lines. From the time Christ was born at Bethlehem, all these prophetic scriptures would bear witness that Jesus was THE man. A close reading of the gospel of John will bear out this relationship of Christ to God His Father--the nature of God and the nature of man, each retaining their own attributes, existing in one person, in a union of perfect harmony. Because His will was to do that of His Father, he is the perfect image of God. He, as the second Adam, is also the perfect example of man, what God intends for us to be.
Scriptural support for the Father/Son view
T his view is in agreement with scripture from start to finish and gives a
greater insight with respect to God's dual nature and our relationship to Him.
It is true to the doctrine of monotheism, not confusing His nature as does the Trinity. It provides an alternative to the notion that the plural Hebrew word elohim refers to the three persons of the Trinity. This plurality can just as well refer to TWO, pointing to God's dual nature as Father/Son.
It reveals how the Father and Son each play different roles yet by their common will and purpose are made One in a union of love and common purpose.
The Father/Son relationship is one we can all understand. Its duality cannot be separated--the nature of a father cannot exist apart from the nature of his son, or visa versa. It is a relationship that we can understand, as we, too, have been miraculously born by His Spirit and are indwelt by God, totally dependent upon Him for the life He promises to live in and through us. True, Jesus was born without sin and as God’s anointed, he played a unique role as our Savior, while we must confess the sin nature that clings so closely. Yet we are told to count ourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ. Do we not pray both to Christ and to our Father?
The Father’s deity belongs to Christ. Make no mistake. When Christ is said to have no deity of his own as a man, some may infer he has no deity at all and cannot properly be worshipped as God. No, he is an inseparable part of the Godhead. The Father has determined to be known not only as Father but as the Son, the Lamb of God, “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” I Peter 1:20.
A QUESTION OF LOGIC: Where was God the Father during the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ? Answer: He was indwelling Jesus' physical body. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself " (II Corn. 5:19). Can it be said any more clearly? God the Father was in Christ every moment from His baptism until the third hour on the cross when God had to forsake His Son in order to judge the sins of the world laid upon Him, after which He raised Christ from the dead, who is now ascended into Heaven, given all power and authority to rule as Lord of lords and King of kings.
Do you believe this? Then what are we to think of the prevailing Trinitarian view that assigns Christ a deity of his own, crediting him, for instance, with omniscience and omnipotence in such instances as when he saw Nathaniel under the fig tree or when he stilled the waters of the Sea of Galilee? If God was in Christ where is the need for Christ himself to be God? Jesus surely didn't think so when in John 14:10 He said, "Do you not believe I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works [i.e., miracles]."
Do the words of Jesus mean anything? “The Father is in Me.” “The Father is indwelling Me.” “The Father speaks through Me." "The Father does the works through Me." In the light of His words, can we safely say without contradiction that Jesus indeed has a deity that indwells Him? Cannot it also be said without contradiction that the DEITY IS THAT OF THE FATHER HIMSELF? It would appear so. Then, is it not safe to say that Jesus, as a man, does not have a nature of deity in himself, but rather the Deity shared with Him by His Father? Further, why need Christ have a deity of His own? If God the Father, who is over all, indwells Christ, speaks through Christ, and performs miracles through Him, what more could Christ do than is not done by the Father? Obviously, NOTHING. Let's carry out that still further. If Christ has a deity of His own and could do all the above things attributed to the Father, then what need for the Father to indwell Jesus? Surely the argument is moot; for the scriptures have already settled the issue. God the Father is indwelling the Son. Jesus is not a liar. He is the personification of truth.
Let's not lose sight of Christ's purpose which was TO REVEAL THE FATHER. He said clearly, unmistakably, "I AM IN THE FATHER AND THE FATHER IS IN ME. God was in Christ by His Spirit. Likewise, God is in every believer by His Spirit. (God is Spirit --John 4:24). "Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming" (I Cor. 15:23). We are to walk as He walked--in total dependence upon our Father, born by His spirit by which He promises to direct our steps as we seek to please Him by faith. True, Christ was born without sin, while God has seen fit to allow our sin nature to remain, though foreign to our new nature in Christ. Facing our own wilderness of temptation and trial, like the man Jesus, our challenge is to overcome by faith in God's word, "for it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Phil. 2:13) Is this not true?
Think about it. Search the scriptures for yourself, taking care not to be blinded by preconceptions, looking at it anew. Your admiration and love for Christ will soar to new heights as you discover He had to tough it out just like the rest of us, with no divinity of his own, though baptized by God's spirit in full measure. Just as He was chosen—forever to be worshipped as the firstborn—even so, we also are chosen to walk in His steps. Is not our own relationship to God patterned after His? He was born miraculously. So are we. He was indwelt by His Father. So are we. He is not ashamed to call us His brethren. We are joint heirs with Christ. He was in the Father, the Father in Him. We are in Christ, He in us. How marvelous!