Chapter 1.
Let Us Reason Together
"Come now, and let us reason together,
saith the Lord."
(Isa. 1:18, KJV)
John 1:1 is the rallying point of Trinitarians.
But in defense of the Bible Students’ non-Trinitarian reading of
this verse, we quote from The Bible Translator, a periodical sent
to Trinitarian scholars:
"If the translation were a matter of
substituting words, a possible translation . . . would be, ‘The
Word was a god.’ As a word-for-word translation it cannot be
faulted, and to pagan Greeks who heard early Christian language,
Theos en o Logos, might have seemed a perfectly sensible
statement. . . . The reason why it is unacceptable is that it runs
counter to the current of Johannine thought, and indeed of
Christian thought as a whole."1
Please note their observation that, as a
word-for-word translation, "it cannot be faulted." As a
matter of fact, in Acts 12:22 (Herod’s voice is a god’s voice)
and Acts 28:6 (Paul is called a god), the translators supplied the
article "a" to the word theos in both instances. They
just happen to think this would be contrary to John’s thought in
John 1:1. That is a very subjective conclusion.
John 1:1, 2 reads: "In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with [ton, the] God, and the Word was
God. The same was in the beginning with [ton, the] God." A
word-for-word Greek rendering of John 1:1, 2 is: "In [a]
beginning [arche] was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and
[a] God was the Word. This was in [a] beginning with the
God." Trinitarians tried to level the field by leaving out
the article (ton) "the." In the King James, as in many
other translations, all references to God are equal to the English
reader. You do not get the contrast between the emphasized God
spoken of twice and the unemphasized God referring to the Logos.
Yet consider how later in this chapter (John
1:18), in the same context, a clear distinction is drawn between
these Gods apart from mere grammatical emphasis: "No man has
seen God at any time; the only begotten god, who is in the bosom
of the Father, He has explained Him." (New American Standard
Bible, Marshall Interlinear, etc.) Clearly, there is a
"begotten God" and a begetter "God." Hence,
John 1:1 must be understood in a manner that harmonizes with this
verse.
To be convincing, the Trinitarian must prove
that "God" in John 1:1 has supreme signification in all
three of its uses. We quote from an orthodox Trinitarian, Dr. G.
C. Knapp: "It (the appellation Logos, here translated Word),
signifies, among the Jews and other ancient people, when applied
to God, every thing by which God reveals Himself to men, and makes
known to them His will. In this passage the principal proof does
not lie in the word Logos (‘revealer of God’), nor even in the
word theos (‘God’), which, in a larger sense, is often applied
to kings and earthly rulers, but to what is predicated of the Logos."(2)
Using such reasoning, is it possible to prove
Jesus is the supreme God from this passage? Does the passage in
fact say that the Logos God has parity with the God? Without
parity, he cannot be the God, nor can he be one-third God. What
beginning is John talking about? God has no beginning or end, for
He is "from everlasting to everlasting" (Psa. 90:2). So
what "beginning" is the Logos identified with? Rev. 3:14
supplies the answer: "The Amen, the faithful and true
witness, the beginning [arche] of the creation of the [ton]
God."
Some say that the word "beginning" (arche)
is rendered "principality(ties), magistrates, at the first,
first estate, corners," etc. and that this gives Rev. 3:14 a
different meaning. Whether our Lord was the beginning, first, or
principal "creation of God," how would that change his
being a created being before all others? In the King James, the
Apostle John’s use of the word arche is consistently translated
"beginning." In the Appendix we submit every usage of
arche in the New Testament by John and other New Testament writers
as listed in The Englishman’s
Concordance. Please note its uses
and how "beginning" is an appropriate translation. It is
only because translators have seen the threat this poses to the
Trinity that they have labored to change the intent of that word
in this verse.
But, let us assume that the Trinitarians are
correct on John 1:1. Let us presume the Logos was Jehovah (or
Yahweh God). What is John then telling? If John believed the
Logos
was the God of Moses, why would John say the "Logos was with
God, and the Logos was God"? What God was the Logos with? Why
place a mark on eternity and say that was the beginning and the Logos was there? If he really wanted to prove the
Logos was God,
he should have said, "See this mark. It is the beginning.
Now, the Logos was here before that beginning as the God, for He
was the God." To place the Logos at the mark called beginning
and not before the "beginning" weakens their whole
position.
The following texts delineate this truth—that
God always existed and that a beginning in time is associated only
with the Logos:
God "from everlasting to everlasting."
Ps. 90:2
Christ Jesus "in the beginning was the Word
. . ." John 1:1
"The Lord created me at the beginning of
his work." Prov. 8:22, RSV
Furthermore, John 1:1 could not be a proof of
the Trinity, for no mention is made of the holy Spirit. That is
most embarrassing when the key scripture to the whole Trinity
concept omits one-third of the Trinity. Therefore, whatever John
1:1 proves, it does not mention the holy Spirit, and it fails to
provide the third part necessary to support the Trinity.
Trinitarians have combed through the Bible using every possible
text to prove their point. In the overwhelming majority of texts
used, you find them doing the same thing as in John 1:1, using
arguments that God and Jesus are one, hoping we will not notice
that none of their proof verses include the third part necessary
– the holy Spirit. The idea is to get people so involved in the
discussion that they will forget the holy Spirit is not mentioned.
Therefore, the debate lacks the third part needed for rational
proof. In order to prove the Trinity doctrine, it is necessary to
find Biblical statements of the oneness of being of Father, Son
and holy Spirit. Even if we could prove the Father and Son were
one being, would it give us a Trinity?
To call God "Christ" gives them a name
but not a Christ [an Anointed One]! We ask again, "What have
you done with Christ?" Where is he? You cannot have three
absolute Gods and one absolute God. The moment you do, you must
redefine absolute. The moment you define God as Christ, you
replace Christ. God can never be less than God!
Why Must the Savior be a God-Man?
The Trinity concept insists that Jesus had to be
a God-man to be the Savior. If he was a mere man, they say, how
could he take upon him the sin of the whole world? It sounds good
to make such extravagant claims about Jesus. Generally, we cannot
pay sufficient homage to our Savior for his great sacrifice, so
why not go all out in our claims for him? To some extent that is
how the Trinity was started, countering claims that Jesus was just
a mere man. As the defense of our Savior was made, so the claims
for him grew and became exaggerated – from being a perfect man
and Son of God, until at last the ultimate claim was made that he
was in fact God. Then followed the super patriotism and the cry
"To the fire" with those who dare claim Jesus someone
less than God. History records John Calvin burned (roasted)
Michael Servetus at the stake for not believing the Trinity. As
they lit the flames, Michael Servetus cried out, "Oh thou Son
of the eternal God have pity on me." One observer said, We
might have had pity on him if he had said, "Oh Eternal Son of
God." Why is church history so lacking in mercy and kindness
and so mean?
"By this shall all men know ye are my
disciples, if ye have love one to another" (John 13:35). If
only God’s people had served their God as well as they had their
Church organizations, how much kinder Church history would be. In
a Church bent on world conquest, there is little love or kindness
to be found. Our country was born to provide refuge from religious
persecution.
Jesus Christ the "Ransom for All"
We read in 1 Tim. 2:5, 6: "The man Christ
Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due
time." What is the ransom? The Greek word for ransom is
antilutron – defined by Dr. Young as "a corresponding
price."(3) One perfect man was a substitutionary sacrifice for
the perfect man Adam, who forfeited his life along with the human
race in him. However, the Church fathers lost sight of the true
meaning of the ransom. When this happened, there was no holding
back the ground swell of extravagant claims about Christ. Anything
less than calling Jesus God was considered demeaning.
For the sake of argument, let us go along with
this exalted claim that Christ is God—a claim neither he nor
Scripture makes. Let us accept their claim that he was God and,
therefore, God died for us. May we ask, How could an immortal God
die?
Did the Absolute God die? The creed maintains
Christ was "very man." Hence, to call God
"Christ" gives them a name, but not a Christ. It was the
"very man" Christ who died. No matter how they define
it, they have only a "very man" who died. How, then, did
"very God" die? God is immortal, death-proof. God could
not die; only some flesh form could die. Despite the semantics,
they come away with only a perfect "human sacrifice."
That is exactly what we believe and claim.
Dr. Adam Clark, a Trinitarian, says, "Two
natures must ever be distinguished in Christ: the human nature, in
reference to which he is the Son of God and inferior to him, and
the Divine nature which was from eternity, and equal to
God."(4) He also disallows that Jesus could be begotten from
eternity, saying: "To say that he [Christ] was begotten from
all eternity, is, in my opinion, absurd; and the phrase eternal
Son is a positive self-contradiction. Eternity is that which has
had no beginning, nor stands in any reference to time. Son
supposes time, generation, and father."(5) In other words, it
was only the human flesh of Christ that died. Hence, they do not
have an infinite sacrifice, because it was the inferior Son who
died. So where, oh where, is the infinite sacrifice of God?
Unless the complete Trinity died on the cross,
Trinitarians have but a very man for their savior. While
Trinitarians insist Jesus was wholly God and wholly man, their
burden is to prove this and also to show that both God and man
died on the cross. The Bible does not say this. Theologians have
labored long and hard to compensate for what is not clearly stated
in the Word. Did Jesus ever say he would give his flesh and deity
for man as a ransom? No. He said, "The bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world"
(John 6:51). Then could he take his flesh body back after giving
it? What would have become of his ransom if taken back after it
had been given?
Dr. Adam Clark renders Psalm 8:5: "Thou has
made him little less than God." He refers to this verse in
Heb. 2:7, and applies it to Jesus, saying, "For a short
while, he was made lower than the angels, that he might be capable
of suffering death."(6) If Dr. Clark’s assertion were true,
Jesus was less than God or lower than the angels. How could he be
"less than God" and still be Absolute God? This presents
a problem in logic.
A Mighty and Infinite Sacrifice
With Small
Results
Let us allow that Christ’s sacrifice was
infinite as claimed. We are allowing this without a Scriptural
basis, for nowhere does the Bible say Jesus’ sacrifice was
infinite. It does not say he suffered more than all mankind. It
does not even say he suffered more than any man. Even Isaiah
52:14, which speaks of his "visage" and "form"
being marred "more than any man," does not fulfill the
infinite suffering assertion. It is not wise to say more than the
Scriptures say. We are allowing such reasoning only to see where
it leads.
Now, allowing for the most extravagant sacrifice
for sin, we ask, How come so few are saved? How come, when
salvation has been reduced to just making a "confession for
Christ," the vast majority of mankind are not accepting
Christ? The churches, for some 1500 years, have entreated the
world. They have carried on bloody wars, imposed the "holy(?)
inquisition," employed the powers of the state, threatening
damnation and eternal fire on those slow to respond — torturing,
killing, maiming — all in vain. The vast majority of the world is
not Christian in any sense of the word, and the part called
Christian is suspect of being mostly a field of "tares"
(Matt. 13:24-30). Would God provide such a powerful salvation,
requiring only the faintest acceptance, and still somehow fail to
save the vast majority of those purchased?
Even when telling people that Christ has
purchased their ticket to heaven and all they have to do is accept
it, still the world at large is unsaved. How come this mighty
salvation fails? More than two-thirds of the world are without
Christ. And the part that accepts Christ might have a goodly
number of "tares" among them, who are the planting of
the Wicked One. How could something so overpowering be so
ineffective? With such an overwhelming salvation, how is it that
most people are lost?
The claim that Jesus had to be God to pay for
every man’s sins, who, according to their theology, is to be
tortured forever and ever if unsaved, means that Jesus would have
endured the fires of theological hell for every man, woman and
child that eternity would inflict upon them—a very sadistic
concept. They claim he had to be God to do this. This whole claim
is totally unscriptural. The Bible says, "For the life of the
flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar
to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that
maketh an atonement for the soul" (Lev. 17:11). Again we
read: "Without shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb.
9:22).
This shedding of blood requires the death of the
victim, not merely suffering. If people could atone for their sins
by suffering, then the Hindu and Eastern religions, wherein people
afflict themselves, laying on spikes, putting hooks in their flesh
and staring at the sun until blind, would certainly commend
themselves to God by buying remission for their sins. Even the
pre-reformation Christian theology with its flagellations should
not then have been discarded. The world already endures such great
suffering because of sin. As we look out into the world, our
hearts ache for humanity. How they need the hope of Christ’s
glorious Kingdom on earth, when all men will be lifted up and
blessed as God pours out His "spirit upon all flesh"
(Joel 2:28). All of this will be possible by Christ’s death on
the cross. Let us see how.
Our Claim!
Our understanding of Scripture is that Jesus
died as a perfect man providing a "corresponding price"
for father Adam. He died a substitutionary death for Adam. All who
are in Adam, therefore, will be ransomed, released from the
condemnation of death. It stands to reason that if Adam did not
possess everlasting life (and he didn’t because he died), then
Christ’s ransom sacrifice can restore to Adam and all men only
what he lost before he sinned. Adam had an opportunity to live
everlastingly if he obeyed God, but failing in this, he died.
Christ’s ransom sacrifice can only bring Adam, and all in him,
another opportunity to attain everlasting life.
Two classes, the Church and the world, will be
privileged to benefit from Christ’s death. During the Gospel
Age, the True Church receives justification to life and, upon
"overcoming," will receive a heavenly reward. The world
will be released from Adamic condemnation during the Millennium.
Christ will be their Mediator (1 Tim. 2:5, 6). How can he mediate
between God and man if he is God? A Mediator must always be a
third party! When the world is nurtured back to human perfection
and their reconciliation with God shall have been accomplished,
they will then be delivered to God, the Father. When Christ’s
mediation is completed, then shall "The King say unto them on
his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matt.
25:34). The Mediator’s work shall have been accomplished. See 1
Cor. 15:24-28.
Mankind, which had been driven from Eden, will
return to an Edenic Paradise on earth. We have all that is
required—the perfect man Christ Jesus as our Savior and
tremendous results from two salvations—the Church now, and the
world of mankind in Christ’s kingdom here on earth. Therefore
all men will be benefited from Christ’s sacrifice. That is as it
should be.
And in the final picture, the Divine Christ will
be subject to the Father, with all "overcomers" of both
the Gospel Age and the Millennium received back into favor with
God (1 Cor. 15:24-28). Then God will be all in all. What could be
sweeter?
"Are You the Christ?"
In Jesus’ illegal trial at night, while Peter
was still there, they asked Jesus –"Are you the Christ, the
Son of the Blessed?" And Jesus said, "I am" (Mark
14:61, 62). If Jesus was truly the Absolute God, didn’t Jesus
owe them that information? The reason Jesus was crucified was
because he was the "Christ, the Son of the Blessed." If
Jesus proclaimed himself to be Absolute God, they would have had a
perfect right to put him to death according to their understanding
of the Mosaic Law: "You shall have no other Gods before
me" (Ex. 20:3). Oddly, they crucified Jesus for claiming to
be the "Son of God," exactly what he admitted being,
while they themselves claimed, "We have one Father, even
God" (John 8:41).
If the disciples believed Jesus was God, they
would not have believed his death. How could they if they held any
concept of his being God? God is eternal! Their immediate problem
after his death was accepting the truth that God raised Jesus from
the dead—Thomas being the last to believe. Later, they became
witnesses to his resurrection, saying to the Jews, "Ye denied
the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted
unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from
the dead" (Acts 3:14, 15).
"Christ who is above all,
God for ever
blessed! Amen."
—The Jerusalem Bible
The above quoted subhead is from Romans 9:5.
Several interesting commentaries on this verse may be found in the
literature. A Catholic Dictionary states: "We have the
strongest statement of Christ’s divinity in St. Paul, and,
indeed, in the N[ew] T[estament]."(7) But establishing Christ’s
divinity is not the same as establishing the Trinity. The King
James reads, "Whose are the fathers, and of whom as
concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for
ever. Amen." No one would argue Jesus is not "God
blessed." To argue that this statement makes him God the
Father is pressuring this verse to say something more than it
does.
The New International Dictionary of New
Testament Theology comments on this verse: "Even so, Christ
would not be equated absolutely with God, but only described as
being of divine nature, for the word theos [God] has no article.
But this ascription of majesty does not occur anywhere else in
Paul. The more probable explanation is that the statement is a
doxology [praise] directed to God, stemming from Jewish tradition
and adopted by Paul."(8) A Catholic Dictionary comments:
"There is no reason in grammar or in the context which
forbids us to translate ‘God, who is over all, be blessed for
ever, Amen.’"(9) The Revised Standard Version so renders it—"God
who is over all be blessed for ever. Amen." Hence, we see,
there are rational thinkers who try to prevent the spread of hasty
and unwarranted conclusions. Some Trinitarians are in constant and
labored activity reading Trinity into verses so eagerly that it is
needful for their fellow theologians to try to temper some of
their excesses.
There is another strange fact of Trinitarian
behavior. They seldom inform the laity of the host of criticisms
and corrective evaluations from within the walls of religious
academia. They vent most of their anger and frustration upon those
who openly and honestly confess not believing the Trinity based on
personal Bible study. They endeavor to malign these by calling
them improper names or even failing to recognize such as
Christians.
In Acts 11:26 we are told the disciples of Jesus
were "called Christians first in Antioch." If this be
so, how could they be called Christians who knew nothing of the
theological Trinity which did not become defined until the fifth
century? How is it that those who believe in the Father, the Son
and the holy Spirit are not recognized as Christians today if they
say they do not believe the "incomprehensible" Trinity?
Perhaps the old desire to persecute and stigmatize those who
differ still exists latently in the hearts of some. Insecurity can
surely lead to unchristian behavior.
Endnotes
Chapter I
1. The Bible Translator, Vol.
28, No. 1, Jan. 1977.
2. Beach vs. Hickey on the Trinity, W. B. Beach and Y.
Hickey, quoting G. C. Knapp, pp. 60, 61.
3. Young’s Concordance, "Ransom," #3, p. 794.
4. Clarke’s Commentary on Luke 1:35, p. 360.
5. Ibid., p. 361.
6. Ibid., on Heb. 2:7, p. 696.
7. A Catholic Dictionary, on Rom. 9:5, p. 809.
8. The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology,
on Rom. 9:5, p. 80.
9. A Catholic Dictionary, ibid.