34. Has Christ Always Existed?

Let's now take a bit of time to dissect a few phrases of the Athanasian Creed.

Words in Gold colour are part of the creed.

The Athanasian Creed

the Majesty coeternal 
But the whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal. 

This says that all three persons of the Trinity are eternal; there never was a time when they did not all three exist. 

Christ was begotten before the worlds;  If Christ, as God, has always existed, how could he have a beginning by being begotten?   

Adam Clarke, a well known Bible commentator, and a staunch trinitarian wrote, To say that he 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; and time also antecedent to such generation. Therefore the conjunction of these two terms, Son and eternity is absolutely impossible, as they imply essentially different and opposite ideas. Adam Clarke on Luke 1:35.

An eminent Biblical scholar, known as "the father of american biblical literature," Moses Stuart, had the following to say on this subject. He spoke as a Trinitarian. "The generation of the son as divine, as God, seems to be out of the question --- unless it be an express doctrine of revelation, which is so far from being the case, that I conceive that the contrary is plainly taught." 

The foundation on which the doctrine of the Trinity rests is that Christ is Eternal. The church itself insists that if Christ is not eternal, he is not God; but out of the other side of their mouth, they say that Christ was begotten. The word, begotten, insists that there must be a starting point. 

The Doctrine of the Trinity. Anthony Buzzard 

the Son Almighty;  Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself. John 5:19.  This is an interesting contrast between the creed and the Bible.  This contradiction itself is enough reason to discard the whole Athanasian Creed!

And in this Trinity, none is before, or after another; none is greater, or less than another.  Perhaps, before they made this wild statement they should have consulted the Bible, a book which their own ilk had canonized.  Jesus Christ plainly said, I am going to the Father, for my Father is greater than I. John 14:28.  

It seems so obvious that by the time the Athanasian Creed was designed the Roman Church fathers were so intent on pushing their own viewpoints that they completely ignored what the Bible actually said.

Christ's Throne

But to the Son He says: Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. Heb. 1:8 KJV.  Here it sounds as if Jehovah Himself is saying that Jesus, His Son, is God.  

The New World Translation has an interesting variation of this verse.  It writes, But with reference to the Son: God is your throne.  In this translation, that verse does not say that Christ is God but rather that God is Christ’s throne.  Many people would reject that meaning because it is from the Bible of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  

However, Westcott and Moffet are accepted, by Evangelical Christians, as trustworthy Bible translators; this is what they say about this verse.  It should read, God is thy throne for-ever and ever.  In the Greek text it reads like this, But with regard to the Son: the throne of Thee, God is.       
scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/heb1.pdf  

According to the Bible, Jehovah did not call Jesus, God!  Neither should we!

To Him (Jesus) who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and made us kings and priests to His God and Father. Rev. 1:5-6.  Saint John writes that God is Christ's God and Father.  If this is true how is it possible to claim deity for Christ or equality between Christ and His Father?

Christ says I have not found your works perfect before your God. Rev. 3:2.  Christ spoke of God in the second person but He did not claim divinity for Himself.

If we lay aside the imaginative speculations of Greek philosophers and theologians; if we omit arguments from inference in our search for the true God and the real Jesus, and rely on Scriptures plain creedal declarations, the Bible reveals that Jesus was the Messiah, Son of God. This is the New Testaments central "dogma". This is the creed of the earliest Christians, and there is no need to alter their perception of the Saviour by presenting his(m) a(s) a preexistent super-angel or as the eternal God who became man. 

The Doctrine of the Trinity; Christianity's Self-inflicted Wound. Anthony Buzzard.

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, ... “I am the Lord, who makes all things, 

Who stretches out the heavens all alone, Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself; Isa. 44:24.  If Christ is the second person of the Trinity and if Christ is the one by whom all things were created how could Jehovah say that He did it all alone?  When two persons are involved in creating something, then one cannot claim credit for it all alone, regardless of how convoluted theologians make the definitions.

Following is a humorous approach to the doctrine of the Trinity:

A ‘squircle’ is ‘a 2D shape that has both a square nature and a circular nature, and it is acknowledged in the two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved and concurring in one shape, not parted or divided into two shapes, but one and the same shape.’ 

Mathematicians have hitherto regarded a square circle as impossible. But we now understand that this impossibility is only ‘merely apparent,’ and that by insisting that the two natures of squareness and circularity are not confused in the squircle, we can arrive at this marvellous figure. It is a shame that nobody yet has been able to draw it, and so its true dimensions must remain for the moment a little mysterious. But mystery or not, here it is, and mathematicians will henceforth be required to believe in it under pain of being cast into the outer darkness (where there are no publishings nor salaries nor tenure).

I think I deserve a Nobel Prize in Mathematics (at least!).” 

From the magazine: Focus on the Kingdom.

For a comprehensive study of the fallacy of the doctrine of the trinity I strongly recommend the book, The Doctrine of the Trinity; Christianity's Self-inflicted Wound by Anthony Buzzard, available at:     
http://focusonthekingdom.org/articles/trinity.htm

33. Dr. Luke's Opinion of the Trinity

The Holy Spirit

At the very beginning of his gospel, Luke tells us that he made a very careful study of the things pertaining to Jesus Christ.  It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account. Luke 1:3. 

Now we look at some of the things he wrote about the Trinity.  Of course, no Bible writers ever used the word Trinity because that very un-Jewish thought had never occurred to any Bible writer.

And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you." Luke 1:35.  It is interesting that in the Greek text the word, The, is not used before Holy Spirit.  

The modern (1611 AD and newer translations) are very Trinitarian.  By inserting the word, The, they imply that The Holy Spirit is a person.  By omitting the word, The, it is easy to see "holy spirit" as referring to the power, or "outflowing", of Jehovah.

                                             

Jesus increased in wisdom (how could God increase in wisdom?), and stature, and in favour with God and men. Luke 2:52.  How is it possible that a person, who is, and always has been equal with God, could increase in favour with God?

• Jesus being tempted for forty days by the devil. Luke 4:2. 
• was in all points tempted as we are. Heb. 4:15. 
• for God cannot be tempted. James 1:3.  

Accepting these statements to be facts, because they are in the Bible, we obviously have a contradiction if we believe that Jesus is God.

I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent. Luke 4:43.  If Christ is God it would have been logical for Him to say, I must preach my kingdom to the other cities also.  He also would not have said I have been sent.

Jesus … was a man approved of God among you by powerful works by the miracles…that God worked through him. Acts 2:22.  

In this verse, the first thing we notice is that Jesus was a man who was recommended by God.  Here some would say, of course, He was a man and also God.  The question then is, if Jesus is God, why did He not work his own miracles?  The Bible tells us that God worked the miracles through Christ.  Jesus did not work His own miracles because He was subservient to His Father!

This man, “you killed him but God raised Him. Acts 2:23.  Christ needed God’s help to rise from the dead; that being true, we see that Christ is not the omnipotent Son that the church says He is; He needed God's help.  

If we insist that Christ is co-equal with the Father we must also insist that He has all the attributes of his Father and vice versa.  Also, we are forced to admit that Jehovah can die?

A Saviour who is God cannot die, and therefore did not die for our sins. The fact that Jesus died for our sins is proof in itself that he was not God. Those who argue that only the body of Jesus died still fall into the trap of saying that Jesus himself did not die. Anthony Buzzard in, The Doctrine of the Trinity.

While Peter was preaching about Jesus, the Messiah, he quoted these words by Moses, The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear. Deut. 18:15.  The Jewish religion accepts that this Prophet will be the Messiah.  

Notice, though, that Moses declared that the Prophet would be, like me, human, not divine.  Moses also said that the prophet would be from among the Israelites, one of their brothers.   This, again, fits Christ, the human, but it does not fit a member of a so-called Trinity.

Dr Luke again quotes St. Peter, How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. Acts 10:38.  Since Jehovah anointed Jesus, Jesus cannot be in the position of being equal with Jehovah.  That anointing happened immediately after Christ's baptism by John, his cousin.  If Christ is equal to His Father, ("God of very God"), He would not have needed to be anointed by His Father!

A person can be by himself but he cannot be with himself, and yet these words tell us that God was with Christ, therefore Christ cannot be God.

Important Confusion

All these arguments against the doctrine of the Trinity are not trivial.  We need to understand that the Greek theologians in the second and third centuries (CE) came from a background of polytheism and they saw the words of the Bible, written by Jews, through the Greek philosophical prism; a prism of many gods and demigods.  To those who "screwed-up" the doctrines given by Christ and the apostles, it was just a small step to change Christ into a God.

Later, theologians realized that it is impossible to have "The God" and "a God" without having two Gods. So they manipulated words until Christ had become equal with the Father. What they came up with is a jumble of words which are totally meaningless. Wikipedia.

we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is; such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost. ... So likewise the Father is Almighty; the Son Almighty; and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not three Almighties; but one Almighty. So the Father is God; the Son is God; and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three Gods; but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord; the Son Lord; and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not three Lords; but one Lord. ... The Father is made of none; neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created; but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten; but proceeding. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is before, or after another; none is greater, or less than another. But the whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal. ...

Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation; ... that we believe and confess; that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Essence of the Father; begotten before the worlds; ... Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood. Who although he is God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ. Parts of the Athanasian Creed.

This maze of verbiage we are told to believe, for fear of condemnation by Jehovah.  Ask any theologian to explain it to you and the stock answer is, "God is too great to explain".  

Even though this last statement is true, why throw this whole load of garbage at us?

The next post will continue with a closer look at the Athanasian Creed.

32. Saint John's Opinion of the Trinity

No Equality Between Father and Son

In the last post, we saw that John 1:1 does not tell us that Christ was the Word from the beginning of time, but that He existed only from the time that He was conceived in Mary's womb.  Now let's look at some other truths written by Saint John.

Trinitarians insist that Christ is eternal and co-equal with the Father, as of course, He would need to be if He were God.    Look at the following Bible verses, with an open mind, and see where you can find equality between Father and Son.

For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, “and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. John 5:26-27.  

The Father granted life to the Son and the Father gave authority to the Son; authority is given from the greater to the lesser.  If the two are equal why didn't the Son give authority to the Father?  

I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me. John 5:30.  If Christ is the eternal creator, how could He honestly say, I can of Myself do nothing?

When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things. John 8:28.  Christ again declares that He is dependant on His Father.  This could not be true if the two are equal; equality in the Trinity is demanded by the Nicene Creed, which was formulated in 325 CE.

Christ said, I am going to the Father, for my Father is greater than I. John 14:28.  If there was no other statement in the Bible about Christ not being equal to the Father, this one verse alone should forever settle the argument against the doctrine of the Trinity, or that the Father and the Son are equal!

Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God. John 20:17.  If Christ and the Father are equal, and if both are God why would Christ call the Father, My God? 

these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, John 20:31.  It is a given that the name Christ, means, The Messiah.  It is also a fact that all devout Jews believe that when the Messiah comes He will be a human, one of the sons of Abraham. 

They are not waiting for "a God", or "a god", to be their Messiah, but, John, a Jew tells us that Jesus is the Messiah.  This is surely a good indication that John believed that Christ was human and not a God/man.

1 John 5:7

1 John 5:7, as it is in the KJV, is almost sure proof of the validity of the doctrine of the Trinity; For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.  But, newer, more accurate, translations have taken all the vitality for that argument out of that verse.  The new translations are much condensed and they say nothing about the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. There is nothing that suggests that the three are one.  Note: 

• The Living Bible - So we have these three witnesses.
• The New Revised Standard Version - There are three that testify.
• The Jerusalem Bible - So that there are three witnesses.

Then, in verse 8, John tells us what the three witnesses are; and they are NOT the Father, the Son and the Spirit; They are the Spirit, the water, and the blood.

About this same verse, 1 John 5:7 the Wycliffe Commentary. writes, The text of this verse should read, ‘Because there are three that bear record’. The remainder of this verse is spurious. Not a single manuscript contains the Trinitarian addition before the fourteenth century, and the verse is never quoted in the controversies over the Trinity in the first 450 years of the church era.

It has been alleged that at the time Jerome was translating the Greek Bible into the Latin Douay version, (the Roman Catholic Bible), while the debate over the Trinity was in full swing, Jerome thought he would bring the debate to an end, once and for all, by adding to the Bible the words, in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.

It is interesting to note that the Douay-Rheims translation includes the words, And there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one, but in the commentary of this section, they completely neglect to say anything about this verse.  It seems as if they knew that those (implanted) words did not belong in the Bible.

About this verse, Jerome Smith writes, if it was admitted as the Word of God, all the ingenuity and diligence of opponents could scarcely avoid the inference (that there is a Trinity) naturally deducible from it. Contemporary scholarship, however, fails to support this reading in any form, suggesting it was added to a late Greek manuscript made for the purpose to influence Erasmus to include it in his Greek text, for Erasmus had promised he would include the text if even one Greek manuscript could be found which contained it. It seems as if such a Greek text did not exist to prove the doctrine of the Trinity, so someone put those words into a Greek manuscript. Erasmus, not willing to break his promise, had to include the following words into his translation, in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit: and these three are one.

Before Jerome’s translation verse 7 simply said, So there are three that testify.  He added words to the Holy Scriptures just to foster his (the church’s) theology.  Yet, most Protestants still insist that the Bible is inerrant and that these verses prove the doctrine of the Trinity. 

The founder of the Jesuit community was dead right in stating the Roman Catholic position on doctrinal issues, when he wrote, if [the church] shall have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black. 

It seems that the Protestants have taken the same view about the doctrine of the Trinity. Even though the Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity, we are told that it is what we need to believe, and we feel like heretics if we do dare change our stance.  

When the reformers left the Roman Church, they should have left the doctrine of the Trinity, with many other erroneous doctrines that they did leave, in the Roman verbiage vault! 

31 In the Beginning was the Word

The Word

What are words? 

Words are symbols, which are used to convey meanings.  There are different methods of expression; such as writing, speaking, sign language, wars, natural disasters and others.

The Gospel of John begins like this, In the beginning was the Word, (Autou, in Greek), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. John 1:1-2 KJV. 

If one believes in the Trinity, these are good verses to try to prove that Christ is God.  However, the Bible does not say that Christ is God; it says that the Word was God.  Bible teachers have been telling us that, the Word, refers to Christ.  Let's look at this thought with an open mind and an open Greek lexicon.

The writer of Hebrews begins his book with, God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son. 1:1-2

Very explicitly, the writer tells us that God has used different methods of communicating with the Jewish people, but that now, in the last days, God spoke through His Son.  Not till now did God even have a Son.  There is nothing, in the first 13 verses of John chapter 1 that says that Christ was that Word.

The meaning of, the Word, is better understood as some scholars have it, where it refers to the wisdom of God.  Note these words by Solomon, about the creation of the universe Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; ... “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old. I have been established from everlasting, From the beginning, before there was ever an earth. Prov. 8:14-23.  

Jeremiah reiterated that same idea; He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom. Jer.10:12.  Christ was not there when the world was created!  THE WISDOM OF GOD WAS THE CREATIVE FORCE.

When John is read in the light of his Hebrew background he provides no support for a doctrine of a Jesus who is "God the Son," an eternal uncreated Person in a triune Godhead. Anthony Buzzard

All things were made through Him (it), and without Him (it) nothing was made that was made. In Him (it) was life, and the life was the light of men. John 1:3-4.

The word Him, (Autou, in Greek), can mean Him or it.  However, because the doctrine of the Trinity is so prevalent, Bible translators opt for the common usage which pushes the theory of the Trinity rather than the very unpopular but proper usage which means it.  It is easy to see that if the word it is used rather than, Him, the word would refer to the wisdom of God rather than to the Son of God.

English translations of the Bible from the Greek before the KJV rendered the beginning of John 1: "All things were made through it and without it nothing was made that was made." Similarly a number of modern German and French translations describe the word as "it," not "him." There is no reason, therefore, to think of the word as a Person, until it becomes embodied in Jesus in John 1:14. Remember that "word" in the Hebrew Bible, the background to the New Testament, never meant a Person in all of its 1455 occurrences.  Does Everyone Believe in the Trinity? Anthony Buzzard.

It is not till John 1:14, that Christ is even introduced in the first chapter of John, with these words, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  Finally, after aeons of time, the Word became Christ, and we (Saint John and his peers) beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  

• It was in Christ that they saw the glory of the Father.  
• Jesus Christ is the Father’s way of speaking in the last days. 
• IT WAS NOT UNTIL THE LAST DAYS THAT CHRIST BECAME THE WORD!  
• It was only in the last days that Jehovah spoke to the world through His Son. 
• Before Christ's birth in Bethlehem Jehovah's Son did not even exist.

Opposition to the Trinity is not confined to so-called "cults." That is a public myth. How many know what Sir Isaac Newton, John Locke and John Milton have in common? They are recognized as among the most intelligent Bible students of the seventeenth century. All objected strongly to the doctrine of the Trinity. These men cannot just be dismissed as ill-educated or prejudiced. They had very good reasons for what they believed and defended in writing. All three were vigorous anti-Trinitarians. So also was Thomas Jefferson, who examined the Trinitarian question carefully in the light of the Bible. ... Many contemporary biblical scholars recognize that the Trinity is a post-biblical development.

http://focusonthekingdom.org/articles/trinity.htm

In writing about the trinity Anthony Buzzard quotes Soren Kierkegaard, Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it". (cited in Time magazine, Dec. 16, 1946, p. 64).

It is incredulous that even those evangelical theologians who admit that the Bible does not teach the doctrine of the trinity believe it anyway.  

The reformers made great strides when they left the Roman Catholic church; for them to reject all the unbiblical Roman Catholic tenets of faith at once may have been more than we should expect.  

Really, though, that was five hundred years ago, why do our theologians still cling to the traditions which were designed without following the teachings of the Bible?

Perhaps we can forgive the Roman Catholic teachers because they accept that tradition is an acceptable guideline.   However, there is no forgiving those who say that all our doctrines must be based on what the Bible (sola scriptura - Latin for scriptures only) teaches and then they blatantly still follow that traditional teaching developed in the third and fourth centuries.

Concerning the Trinity, Anthony Buzzard writes: Neither Catholic nor Protestant theology is based on biblical theology.  

Further on he quotes Victor Gollanz as saying: In fact, the authority of the Protestant ministry as a whole, the claim to be able to understand the Bible and expound it as the word of God, is in my view a vast confidence trick. I am not accusing the clergy of being fraudulent, or even insincere. The confidence trick is collective; individually those who engage in it are deceived by it. ... Any claim that training and ordination produce the only authentic Christian teaching is fraudulent.

For a comprehensive study of the fallacy of the doctrine of the trinity I strongly recommend the book, The Doctrine of the Trinity; Christianity's Self-inflicted Wound, by Anthony Buzzard, available at:

http://focusonthekingdom.org/articles/trinity.htm