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Recently, I’ve begun engaging with Jehovah’s Witnesses who have come to my door. In the past, I’ve not been able to because of one reason or another. I’ve not been home when they came knocking, I was in the shower, or what have you. The fact that they didn’t come down my street often made the opportunities to evangelize JWs sparse, to begin with, but in those few times they did come, I just missed them. About a month ago, I finally got lucky. Two of them came to my door, an older woman and a younger girl, and we began to have a discussion. The first conversation wasn’t about much of our differences, but rather in getting to know each other, and what common theological ground we shared. I told about Cerebral Faith, my mission as a Christian Apologist, my aspirations to become a biblical scholar, and other things. In the second visit, we dialogued about what The Bible teaches concerning the nature of God and the person of Jesus. The conversation lasted about 45 minutes. You see, the Jehovah’s Witnesses deny some very major biblical doctrines that place them outside of orthodoxy and salvation. They deny that Jesus is God incarnate and that God is a Trinity. ^[1]For those wondering why the deity of Christ is an essential doctrine, and not some minor theological dispute like the age of the Earth or the Arminian/Calvinist debate, I recommend checking out Jim … Continue reading I believe it went well, as they left with smiles and plans for future visits.

In the following weeks, one of them sent me an article from The WatchTower website titled “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” In this article, I will be responding to what it says. My goal in this article is twofold; (1) I want to equip my readers to give a defense for the deity of Christ and the doctrine of The Trinity, and (2) I plan on using this article as my set of notes for the next time I meet them. Since I planned on writing notes anyway, it seemed good to me to put it in the form of a blog article. With that, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of the article.

The WatchTower Understands The Importance Of The Issue

In the first section of the article, they write \\”Why should a subject like this be of any more than passing interest? Because Jesus himself said: ‘Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.’”’ So our entire future hinges on our knowing the true nature of God, and that means getting to the root of the Trinity controversy. Therefore, why not examine it for yourself?—John 17:3, Catholic Jerusalem Bible (JB).”\\ ^[2]The WatchTower Society, “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” — Should You Believe It? (jw.org)

They are right! This is a subject of the utmost importance! That is why I want to talk to them. I believe that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are heretics who are going to go to Hell for denying the one true God. If I’m right, then they are! Likewise, they believe that I’m someone they need to evangelize. And I will say upfront that IF the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) are right in their theology, then they have every right to be concerned about me. Why? Because if Jesus isn’t God, but is instead a mere creature, then I am breaking the first commandment, which is to worship no other God besides Yahweh (see Exodus 20:3). If Jesus is not God, then I am worshipping a creature alongside the Creator, a sin so heinous that it sent the people of Israel into Babylonian captivity (2 Kings 24-25). In my last discussion with them, I told the JWs that I appreciated their evangelistic efforts because it showed that they cared for my soul. They were willing to put themselves out there to try to win people over away from what they considered heresy. And I invited them into my home out of the same concern. We see each other as heretics and mission fields, and depending on who is right, one of us is!

I would maintain, however, that it is the JWs that do not know the true nature of God. For them, God is a unitarian being who sent a created angel (St. Michael) to become incarnate, rather than having come himself (as John 1:1-14 and Philippians 2:5-8 clearly teach). As the Watchtower rightly says; “If the Trinity is true, it is degrading to Jesus to say that he was never equal to God as part of a Godhead. But if the Trinity is false, it is degrading to Almighty God to call anyone his equal, and even worse to call Mary the “Mother of God.”\\ ^[3]ibid

Various Trinitarian Concepts?

The article goes on to say \\“Various Trinitarian concepts exist. But generally the Trinity teaching is that in the Godhead there are three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; yet, together they are but one God. The doctrine says that the three are coequal, almighty, and uncreated, having existed eternally in the Godhead.”\\ ^[4]ibid

It is difficult to understand what is meant by “various trinitarian concepts”, but what they go onto describe as the doctrine of The Trinity is surprisingly accurate. The doctrine of The Trinity does indeed state that there is one God, and this one God consists of three distinct person. As some preachers have said, “God is one what, and three whos”. They are not separate Gods, but one God. As stated, it is isn’t a contradiction as some anti-Trinitarians allege. It is the divine essence that is one, and the persons that are three. The Trinity is not that there are three Gods and only one God at the same time, nor that God is one person and three persons at the same time. The WatchTower rightly says that God is a being that consists of “three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost), yet togther they are but one God. The doctrine says that these three are co-equal, almghtly, and uncreated.”

Perhaps what “various Triniarian Concepts” means is the inhouse debate between Social Trinitarians and Latin Trinitarians. ^[5]Both views are defended by various Christian philosophers in the book “Philosophical and Theological Essays On The Trinity” published by Oxford University and edited by Thomas McCall and … Continue reading. However, this seems like a rabbit trail I need not pursue for my purposes here.

How Is The Trinity Explained? – (1) Hopeless Appeals To Mystery?

The Article starts off citing the Catholic encyclopedia followed by a restatement of the importance of whether or not we affirm or deny this doctrine. The article then cites that The Trinity is often explained by Orthodox Christians by….well….not being explained at all. Sadly, the article and whoever wrote it is mostly right. When you press most Christians to logically explain how God can be three persons in one divine essence, you don’t usually get satisfactory answers. The majority of Christians, even those who stand behind pulpits and teach at seminaries, will do one of two things (1) They will say that The Trinity is “beyond the grasp of reason” or (2) They’ll try to explain it using an analogy that ends up being modalism. ^[6]Modalism is the view that God is one person and changes “modes”. Sometimes He’s in the mode of being The Father, sometimes He’s in the mode of being The Son, and sometimes … Continue reading.

However, it seems clear to me that whoever wrote this article/booklet for the WatchTower Society did not encounter the great philosophical work of the scholars who contributed to the Oxford publication “Philosophical and Theological Essays On The Trinity” edited by Thomas McCall and Michael C. Rea. In this book, Social and Latin Trinitarians attempt to philosophically explain how The Trinity can be a logically coherent concept.

My preferred model is philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig’s Social Trinitarian model, which he defends in the aforementioned book and also in places like “Philosophical Foundations For A Christian Worldview” (co-authored with philosopher J.P Moreland). Dr. Craig explains simply that God is one soul who possesses three distinct cognitive faculties each sufficient for personhood. He begins with the analogy of Cerberus, but so as not to be a “Craig Clone”, in my presentations on this, I use the analogy of the Pokemon Dodrio. Dodrio is a three-headed ostrich-like creature. Now, despite having three heads, you do not have three Pokemon, but one. A Pokemon Trainer can only carry 6 Pokemon with him at one time, and having a Dodrio on your team doesn’t take up half the slots. He is one Pokemon that consists of three heads. A Pokemon Trainer could, if he so wished, give each of the heads their own individual names; Tom, Frank, and Carl. If Tom were to peck at you, you could say “Dodrio pecked me!” or if Frank were to snatch a sandwich out of your hand, you could say “Dodrio stole my sandwich!” They are distinct consciousnesses, but they are clearly not three different Pokemon. Tom is not Frank, Frank is not Carl, and Carl is neither Tom nor Frank, yet Tom is Dodrio, Frank is Dodrio, and Carl is Dodrio. We are using the “Is” of identity with respect to the heads being Tom, Frank, and Carl. But we are using the “is” of predication when it comes to being Dodrio. Likewise, God is one divine entity who consists of three distinct persons. The Father is not The Son, The Son is not The Holy Spirit, and The Holy Spirit is neither The Father nor the Son, but all three persons are God. The Father is God, Jesus is God, and the Spirit is God.

In the case of Dodrio, the three centers of consciousness are distinct. As such, there is the potential for there to be conflict among the heads. And in fact, in the Pokemon anime, this has happened. ^[7]See Episode 33: “The Flame Pokemon-Athon”. Nevertheless, to be a viable biological organism (not to mention a good Pokemon to use in battle), there has to be a significant amount of cooperation among these three consciousnesses. Despite the diversity of his three mental states, Dodrio is clearly only one Pokemon. He is one instantiation of the Flying type Pokemon nature. Frank, Carl, and Tom may also be said to be avian even though they are not three birds.

Now, it’s the body that makes Dodrio one Pokemon. If Dodrio were to be killed, the three would no longer be one in any sense, but completely divided in three entirely separate souls. It is at this point that the analogy breaks down. However, any good logician knows that any analogy will break down at some point, for any analogy between two things cannot be an analogy unless there are some differences between the things being compared. By the very nature of the case, to say something is “like” something else is to say that they are different. In this case, God is not a physical ostrich with mood swings! But hopefully, they are similar enough to help the reader grasp the point; God is one entity that consists of three persons. God is one soul with three sets of cognitive faculties.

I brought up “the is of identity” and the “is of predication”. Let me explain that by citing from Dr. William Lane Craig’s “Defenders Podcast”. Dr. Craig said; “

“Now you might say but aren’t the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit God? Don’t you want to affirm that? Not in the sense of an identity statement. When one says that the Father is God, one is not making an identity statement. When one says the Son ‘is’ God, one is not making an identity statement. Rather this ‘is’ is an ‘is’ of predication, not of identity. For example, if I say ‘Elizabeth is queen’ I’m not saying that Elizabeth is identical to the queen. I am saying she holds the office or the role or the title of being queen. But it would be possible for there to be co-regents. Right? Sometimes that happens. There’s more than one king or more than one queen. So when we say ‘Elizabeth is queen’ you’re not making an identity statement; you’re making a predication. You’re predicating being queen of Elizabeth. You’re making a statement like this: ‘Elizabeth is regal.’ You’re saying she is the queen in that sense. Not an identity statement but you’re assigning a predicate. Elizabeth is regal.

So when we say the Father is God, this is a way of saying the Father is divine. When we say the Son is God, that’s a way of saying the Son is divine. You’re making a predication of the Father and the Son. You’re predicating full divinity of the Father and the Son. You’re not making an identity statement. Otherwise you would get three gods. So properly speaking the true identity statement would be ‘The Trinity is God.” When we say the Father is God, the Son is God, those are not identity statements, rather they are predications. They are predicating properties of the Father and the Son, namely the property of being fully divine.” ^[8]Dr. William Lane Craig, “Defenders Podcast 3, The Doctrine Of God – The Trinity (8): Historical Survey (4) Coherence Of The Doctrine”, September 14th 2016.

There is more to be said here, but what I’ve said thus far will hopefully be satisfactory to the average viewer. For a full treatment on this, I recommend watching my video “Is The Doctrine Of The Trinity Logically Coherent?” This was a live stream on the Cerebral Faith YouTube channel where I did a conference-style presentation on the logical coherence of The Trinity. In that talk, I say what I said above, but in addition, I address some objections from atheists and Latin Trinitarians to this model.

When people like Monsignor Eugene Clark say: “God is one, and God is three. Since there is nothing like this in creation, we cannot understand it, but only accept it.” ^[9]as quoted in the article “Should You Believe In The Trinity”? Section 2 from www.JW.org. or when Cardinal John O’Connor states: “We know that it is a very profound mystery, which we don’t begin to understand.” ^[10]As quoted in ibid., they are prematurely shutting off rational investigation into an essential Christian doctrine. It is true that we can’t fully comprehend the nature of The Trinity – I can’t comprehend what it’s like to have my one nature divided up into three equal consiousnesses – but we can understand enough to know that it isn’t illogical incoherent drivel.

How Is The Trinity Explained? – (2) No Agreement Amongst Ourselves?

The booklet then cites A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge as saying “Precisely what that doctrine is, or rather precisely how it is to be explained, Trinitarians are not agreed among themselves.” ^[11]as quoted in the article “Should You Believe In The Trinity”? Section 2 from www.JW.org. The latter half of this statement is right, at least. There is indeed debate amongst orthodox Christians on how best to philosophically articulate this doctrine. For example, in academia, you have Social Trinitarians like Dr. William Lane Craig on one side and Latin Trinitarians like Daniel Howard-Snyder on the other side. In the pew, you also have lay Christians who think using water and egg analogies is perfectly fine, and others giving hopeless appeals to mystery. However, we all agree on WHAT The Trinity is, and when we formulate our philosophical-theological models, we keep that definition in mind so as not to let our thinking overstep those boundaries. Simply put; God is one entity who exists as three distinct persons. That’s what Roman Catholics, Baptists (like myself), Lutherans, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, and other orthodox Christian groups affirm. However, we may dispute how best to defend it. For example, Social Trinitarians like myself and William Lane Craig think that Latin Trinitarian models like that of Daniel Howard-Snyder and Brian Leftow get dangerously close to modalism. Howard-Snyder and Leftow think that our model gets too close to Polytheism. But we all agree that God is three persons in one divine essence, we would just dispute the philosophical models the other puts forth to express this.

Not A God Of Confusion

The article/booklet goes on to ask how such a “confusing” doctrine could have originated, and goes on to cite Catholic scholars giving false piety to irrationality and saying that such a mysterious doctrine could have only come from divine revelation. Well, as I have already shown above, while we may not be able to completely wrap our minds around the idea of 1 God being 3 persons (because in our experience, 1 person is 1 entity, and any 2 persons are 2 entirely separate entities), nevertheless, there are philosophical models, like Craig’s Social Trinitarian model which can show us that the idea is no so bewildering as to be irrational. It is at least logically coherent, and, as we’ll see later in this article, taught by The Bible.

The article cites 1 Corinthians 14:33 which says that God is not a God of confusion. However, is it really God’s fault if people misunderstand what he’s revealed about Himself through his word? Does God never teach us anything that doesn’t initially confuse or bewilder us until we’ve had time to reflect on it? In Matthew 16:21-23, we read “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’ Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.'” Even if you don’t believe Jesus is God, folks like the Jehoavah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus is at least a prophet from God. He at least speaks on God’s behalf. In this instance, Jesus taught his disciples that he had to die and be resurrected. They understood later, as is clear from the way they talk about the death and resurrection in the epistles (see passages like 1 Peter 3:18, Romans 4:25, Romans 5:8, 1 John 2:2), but before it happened, they were confused. Peter even vowed to not let it happen! This is because, although passages like Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 prophesied that the Messiah would die, these passages were not understood to be messianic until after the fact. If they were, Jesus’ atoning death would have never happened. As it is written in 1 Corinthians 2:7-8, “But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (ESV). It’s like in the movie Avengers: Endgame, Iron Man asks Doctor Strange “Is this timeline in which we win?” and Strange replies “If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.” Well, God did tell us what would happen, but he did so in such a cryptic way that it went unnoticed until after the fact. (cf. Acts 8 where the Ethiopian Eunuch asks Phillip if Isaiah the prophet is talking about himself or someone else).

As biblical scholar Charles Quarels explains in the CSB Study Bible “Jesus referred to his death and resurrection earlier (12:40), but this is the first of three major predictions from this point on (see 17:22; 20:17–19). Peter could not accept the warning because his messianic expectations did not include a suffering, executed Messiah.” ^[12]Charles L. Quarles, “Matthew,” in CSB Study Bible: Notes, ed. Edwin A. Blum and Trevin Wax (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 1528–1530.

This is only one of several instances in which the disciples initially fail to grasp a teaching of Jesus (see John 2:18-22; 3:14-18; Matthew 12:39-41; 17:9, 22-23 for other instances). Is Jesus “authoring confusion” here? No! Of course not! Is what Jesus teaching illogical? Again, no. It didn’t make sense initially, when they first heard it. And the reason in the specific cited example is obvious; first-century Jews weren’t anticipating a dying and rising messiah, but a conquering warrior king who would raise an army to slaughter the Romans. ^[13]See Mark L. Strauss, “Messiah,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016)., See also Charles L. Quarles, “Matthew,” in CSB Study Bible: Notes, … Continue reading

The author of the JW.org booklet rhetorically asks “do people have to be theologians ‘to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent’?” The author does not specify what he means by “theologian”, but a reasonable inference would be that he means a formally trained seminary student who attained a PHD in theology. ^[14]Because technically anyone who studies and/or debates theology is a theologian. See R.C Sproul’s book “Everyone’s A Theologian: An Introduction To Systematic Theology”. The … Continue reading. However, as of the time of writing this, I have no degrees in theology, philosophy, Old Testament, or New Testament. Yes, I plan on pursuing a New Testament degree, but as of writing this, I am a well-read layman. I have read a lot of books, attended apologetics and theology conferences, gotten my hands on academic papers, and watched YouTube videos from reputable sources. ^[15]See my article “The Concept Of The Credentialed Layman” for an argument on why you don’t necessarily need a degree to say something about a topic.. That’s why it’s uber important for me to be sure to cite as many scholarly sources as I can when making claims. And yet despite just being informally trained I seem to have a pretty good grasp on Trinitarian theology. You don’t need to be a Ph.D. theologian to understand and believe in The Trinity, you just need to be willing to think through the topic. Would it be simpler if God were just a single person? Absolutely, but as C.S Lewis once said, “It is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things are not simple. They look simple, but they are not. The table I am sitting at looks simple: but ask a scientist to tell you what it is really made of—all about the atoms and how the light waves rebound from them and hit my eye and what they do to the optic nerve and what it does to my brain—and, of course, you find that what we call ‘seeing a table’ lands you in mysteries and complications which you can hardly get to the end of. A child saying a child’s prayer looks simple. And if you are content to stop there, well and good. But if you are not—and the modern world usually is not—if you want to go on and ask what is really happening—then you must be prepared for something difficult. If we ask for something more than simplicity, it is silly then to complain that the something more is not simple. …Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up.” ^[16]C. S. Lewis. Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics) (Kindle Locations 608-627). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. Reality is often complex. Deal with it.

Is The Trinity Clearly A Bible Teaching? (1) – The Word “Trinity” In The Bible

The author of the article begins the next section by writing “IF THE Trinity were true, it should be clearly and consistently presented in the Bible. Why? Because, as the apostles affirmed, the Bible is God’s revelation of himself to mankind. And since we need to know God to worship him acceptably, the Bible should be clear in telling us just who he is.” ^[17]The WatchTower Society, “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Section 3 — Is It Clearly a Bible Teaching? (jw.org)

I agree. It should be. But as we’ll see later on in my response, The Trinity is so overwhelmingly present in scripture that the Jehovah’s Witnesses basically had to rewrite The Bible to uphold their low Christology!

The author then writes \\“First-century believers accepted the Scriptures as the authentic revelation of God. It was the basis for their beliefs, the final authority. For example, when the apostle Paul preached to people in the city of Beroea, ‘they received the word with the greatest eagerness of mind, carefully examining the Scriptures daily as to whether these things were so.’—Acts 17:10, 11.

What did prominent men of God at that time use as their authority? Acts 17:2, 3 tells us: ‘According to Paul’s custom . . . he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving by references [from the Scriptures].’

Jesus himself set the example in using the Scriptures as the basis for his teaching, repeatedly saying: ‘It is written.’ ‘He interpreted to them things pertaining to himself in all the Scriptures.’—Matthew 4:4, 7; Luke 24:27.”\\ ^[18]ibid, Section 3

So far so good. Yes, the scriptures were the highest authority of the early church. We see time and time again that it is scripture that Jesus and the apostles turn to in order to support their teaching. They don’t appeal to any human leader in a big hat. This is one reason why I affirm the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura. The only exception is Jesus making changes to, say, kosher laws and non-Moral aspects of The Old Testament law (see, e.g Mark 7:19, Acts 15, and the entire book of Galatians). This is because, as God, Jesus could say certain things other rabbis couldn’t. And the apostles had apostolic authority given them. Their writings were as divinely inspired as the scriptures they consulted (see 2 Timothy 3:16 compared with 2 Peter 3:16). But Christians today are neither God nor prophets or apostles, so we must rely exclusively on what was previously revealed.

\\“Since the Bible can ‘set things straight,’ it should clearly reveal information about a matter as fundamental as the Trinity is claimed to be. But do theologians and historians themselves say that it is clearly a Bible teaching?”\\ — Indeed.

Is The Trinity Clearly A Bible Teaching? (2) – An Old Testament Trinity

This section starts off talking about the word “Trinity” not being in The Bible. When I first started reading this section, I was afraid that they were going to make the lame argument that “The word Trinity is not in The Bible, therefore The Trinity is unbiblical!” Thankfully, the author did not go there as that would be fallacious. Concepts can be in scripture even if the terms we use to describe them are coined extra-biblically. God’s attributes of “Omnipotence”, “Omnipresence”, and “Omniscience” are other examples. None of these words are in The Bible, the original languages nor the English translations. Yet these accurately capture how the biblical authors speak of God. For example, God’s omnipresence is found in Psalm 139:7-12. The word “Omnipresence” isn’t used, but the Psalmist talking about God being any possible place he could travel to certainly expresses that idea. In the same way, the concept of God being one entity consisting of more than one person might be in scripture even though the word theologians use to describe that concept is not. This piece of Watchtower Apologetics recognizes this, but I thought I would explain the fallacy for the sake of my readers.

The booklet then cites The Encyclopedia of Religion saying “Theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity.” And the New Catholic Encyclopedia also says: “The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taught in the O[ld] T[estament].” ^[19]The WatchTower Society, “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Section 3 — Is It Clearly a Bible Teaching? (jw.org

They then go on to cite a Jesuit named Edmund Fortman as saying: “The Old Testament . . . tells us nothing explicitly or by necessary implication of a Triune God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. . . . There is no evidence that any sacred writer even suspected the existence of a [Trinity] within the Godhead. . . . Even to see in [the “Old Testament”] suggestions or foreshadowings or ‘veiled signs’ of the trinity of persons, is to go beyond the words and intent of the sacred writers.”

This is pretty much all there is for this portion of the booklet. Just a couple of citations from Catholic books merely asserting that there is no Godhead in the Old Testament. The author then moves on to examine The New Testament. First, let’s try to extract what the point being made here is supposed to be. The point here is that The Trinity is a later invention. It’s not in The Old Testament at all, and, as the author will explain later, it’s not in The New Testament either, so it developed after the writing of both. But let’s address the first half of the argument (i.e that there is no concept of a Godhead in The Old Testament). There are two problems with this;

(1) Even if it were true that there was no concept of God existing as more than one person, what does it matter? The Bible is progressive revelation. Not every last detail of theology can be known from The Old Testament alone. Why do you think we even got 27 more books added to the biblical canon? Because God was not finished talking. He had more to say. As long as it is in The New Testament, that should be all that matters.

(2) These Catholic authors are simply wrong. There is a concept of a Godhead in The Old Testament. Christian Bible scholars like Michael Heiser and pastors like Matt Foreman and Douglas Van Doorn have written about this in books like “The Unseen Realm: Recovering The Supernatural Worldview Of The Bible” and “The Angel Of The Lord: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Study”, but these three men are riffing on the work of a JEWISH scholar named Alan Segal who wrote what has become known as “The Two Powers In Heaven Doctrine” in his doctoral thesis.

In the following paragraphs, I’d like to share some of that Old Testament evidence with you. There are actually many examples, so for the sake of preventing this article from being longer than it has to, I will only go over three passages.

Example 1: Genesis 19:24 – The Lord From The Lord.

Genesis 19:24 says “Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven.” (emphasis mine in bold underlining).

In the book “Our God Is Triune”, Anthony Rogers comments on this verse as follows;

“On the face of it Genesis 19:24 appears to point up some kind of personal plurality or distinction within the Godhead, for it speaks of Yahweh doing something from Yahweh. To say the least, this would be an odd and unexpected way of saying that only one person is in view. This passage is remarkable regardless of how you deal with it. It simply states that there are two divine Persons. One on the earth and One in the heavens. Each Person is called יְהוָ֖ה (Yahweh). The first יְהוָ֖ה (Yahweh) who is on earth brings down brimstone and fire from the second יְהוָ֖ה(Yahweh) who is in the heavens. It is easy to see why this passage has irritated anti-Trinitarians for centuries.[94] This prima facie reading may particularly be seen from the fact that some non-trinitarians, as well as others who are averse to seeing any indication of the Trinity in the Old Testament, find this text mystifying and insoluble as it stands and so either: 1) opt for charging the text with corruption at this point; or 2) resort to saying that the repetition of Yahweh in the verse is a result of bad editorial patchwork of two different sources.

An example of the first is seen in the words of John Skinner, who makes the following assertion: ‘A distinction between Yahwe as present in the angels and Yahwe as seated in heaven…is improbable. We must either suppose that the original subject was ‘the men’…, or that מֵאֵ֥ת יְהוָ֖ה is a doublet to מִן־הַשָּׁמָֽיִם: the latter phrase, however, is generally considered to be a gloss…’ An example of the second is seen in Claus Westermann, who argues that the plurality is the result of the poor editing of a composite text. ​

The fact that, on one hand, there is nothing problematic about the text for trinitarians who understand it to be referring to two divine persons, for that’s exactly how one would expect it to read on such a supposition, and, on the other hand, that arbitrarily barring a trinitarian interpretation forces some to alter or find fault with the text rather than with their interpretation, constitutes tacit evidence that the trinitarian reading is the obvious reading. Since this is the prima facie meaning, the one that first presents itself to the reader and most naturally accords with the way the text stands written, this interpretation ought to be taken seriously and the evidence offered for it should be carefully weighed and given a fair hearing.” ^[20]Burgos Jr., Michael R.; Diaz III, Hiram R. ; Rogers, Anthony ; Dalcour, Edward L. ; Malone, Vocab; Boshoff, Rudolph. Our God is Triune: Essays in Biblical Theology (p. 24-25). Church Militant … Continue reading

In support of a Trinitarian understanding of the text, we can turn our Bibles to the book of Isaiah where through the prophet, God recounts the Sodom and Gomorrah event. “Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them [i.e. Babylon], who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold. And their bows will mow down the young men, they will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, nor will their eye pity children. And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.” (Isaiah 13:17-19, emphasis mine)

God is speaking here. He refers to Himself in the third person when speaking of the time He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. This is what we would expect if Yahweh were two persons in the account. A Yahweh on Earth and a Yahweh in Heaven.

In Jeremiah 50:40, we read “As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah with its neighbors,’ declares the LORD, ‘No man will live there, nor will any son of man reside in it.'” (emphasis mine)

Once again, God is speaking here. He refers to Himself in the third person when speaking of the time He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. This is what we would expect if Yahweh were two persons in the account. A Yahweh on Earth and a Yahweh in Heaven.

Example 2: Genesis 22:1-9 – You Have Not Witheld Your Only Son From ME.

Genesis 22:1–9 tells of Abraham taking Isaac to Mount Moriah to be sacrificed at the command of Yahweh. What follows is in verses 10-18;

“And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. And the angel of Yahweh called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ And he said, ‘Do not stretch out your hand against the boy; do not do anything to him. For now I know that you are one who fears God, since you have not withheld your son, your only child, from me.’ And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked. And behold, a ram was caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place ‘Yahweh will provide,’ for which reason it is said today, ‘on the mountain of Yahweh it shall be provided.’ And the angel of Yahweh called to Abraham a second time from heaven. And he said, ‘I swear by myself, declares Yahweh, that because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only child, that I will certainly bless you and greatly multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the shore of the sea. And your offspring will take possession of the gate of his enemies. All the nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring, because you have listened to my voice.” (emphasis mine)

Of this passage, Old Testament scholar Michael Heiser writes “The … reader … knows that the source is not Yahweh per se, but the angel of Yahweh. The word translated ‘angel’ here is the Hebrew word mal’ak , which simply means ‘messenger.’ The next observation is very important. The Angel speaks to Abraham in verse 11, and so is distinguished from God. But immediately after doing so, he commends Abraham for not withholding Isaac ‘from me.’ There is a switch to the first person which, given that God himself had told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Gen 22:1–2), seems to require seeing Yahweh as the speaker. Many scholars would say that this is due to the Angel being Yahweh’s mouthpiece, standing in Yahweh’s place as it were. But that idea is conveyed only later in the passage when (v. 16) the angel prefaces his words with ‘declares Yahweh.’ In verse 11 there is no such clarification. The wording of the text blurs the distinction between Yahweh and the angel by swapping the angel into the role of the person who initially demanded the sacrifice as a test—Yahweh himself (Gen 22:1–2). Consequently, the biblical writer had the opportunity to make sure Yahweh and the angel were distinguished, but did not do so.” ^[21]Heiser, Michael S.. The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (p. 136). Lexham Press. Kindle Edition.

Example 3: Zechariah 3:1-7 – God and The Forgiving Angel

In Zechariah 3:1-7 (ESV), we read “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan, ‘The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?’ Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Remove the filthy garments from him.’ And to him he said, ‘Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.’ And I said, ‘Let them put a clean turban on his head.’ So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD was standing by. And the angel of the LORD solemnly assured Joshua, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here.”

There are 5 persons in this scene; Zechariah (the one having the vision), The Lord, The Angel Of The Lord, Satan, and Joshua the high priest. Several clues in this passage suggests there are “Two Yahwehs” present.

1: The Lord speaks to Satan in the third person. “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan!” Why doesn’t he say “I rebuke you”? This indicates that The Lord is speaking of a second person who is Yahweh, but it isn’t definitive by himself as people can refer to themselves in the third person.

2: The Angel Of The Lord commands that Joshua’s filthy garments be removed and replaced with clean ones. The Angel says “I have taken your iniquity away from you.” This is something that only God can do, strongly implying that the Angel is God.

3: The Angel Of The Lord talks about God in the third person. He says “Thus says the LORD of hosts: If you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here.”

If The Angel is forgiving sins which is something only God can do, then he’s either blaspheming or he’s God (verses 4-5). The Lord who is present in this scene doesn’t take an issue with his angel taking the divine prerogative of sin forgiving, so the latter is the most reasonable conclusion.

Yet the angel is also distinct from Yahweh as he talks about Yahweh in the third person and talks about what Yahweh says as though he were a mere spokesperson for Yahweh (verses 6-7). If the angel is Yahweh and there is no second Yahweh in the picture, why doesn’t the angel simply say “This is what I say” rather than “This is what The Lord Almighty says?”

Much more could be said. I give more examples in my YouTube presentation “The Angel Of The Lord and A Two Person Godhead In The Old Testament”. But hopefully what I’ve said so far will suffice to show you that the idea of a Godhead being absent from The Old Testament is false. It is definitely there. And this isn’t just something that 21st-century Americans are picking up on. In his doctoral thesis, Alan Sagal (who I should remind you is not a Christian) details historical documentation of people in Second Temple Judaism noticing these features of the text. In fact, Sagal explains that The Two Powers doctrine was widely accepted among Jews until it was banned in the second century, most likely because it gave the Christian Trinity too much credibility. Now, as a unitarian Jew, Segal finds the declaration of the Two Powers doctrine heresy to be a good thing, but the point remains; this wasn’t new to the New Testament authors. Pre-Christian Jews were picking up on it. ^[22]To read Alan Segal’s doctoral dissertation, you can access it at Academia.edu by clicking here –> (PDF) Alan F. Segal. Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and … Continue reading

Is The Trinity Clearly A Bible Teaching? (3) – The New Testament

Now we move on to examining what The New Testament has to say about the nature of God. Again, the author of the booklet just cites a bunch of sources merely asserting that neither the word Trinity nor the doctrine is found in the text. There isn’t much by way of argument, just a bunch of quotes saying that The Trinity is not taught in scripture. A couple of these sources aren’t even Christian sources (such as The New Encyclopedia Britannica and The Encyclopedia of Religion), others are by Catholic scholars but the JWs use of their quotes are problematic in other ways. I want to zero in on one specific quote that the WatchTower booklet cites; that of the Jesuit priest Edmund Fortman.

Fortman writes: “The New Testament writers . . . give us no formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, no explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. . . . Nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead.” ^[23]As quoted in The WatchTower Society, “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” Section 3 — Is It Clearly a Bible Teaching? (jw.org

Notice what Forman actually says. He says that “The New Testament writers give us no formal or formulated doctrine of The Trinity.” He says that there is no one place where it is explicitly stated that God is one divine essence consisting of three persons. But to say this is not to say that The Trinity is not in The Bible. What Fortman is saying here is that you won’t find one verse or passage that reads like The Nicene Creed! You won’t find a verse that explicitly says “God is three persons in one divine essence”. And I wholeheartedly agree!

The Trinity is a logical outworking of 5 biblical teachings; (1) There is only one God, (2) The Father is God, (3) The Son is God, (4) The Holy Spirit is God, (5) The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons.

If the 5 aforementioned statements can find their support in scripture, then the doctrine of The Trinity naturally follows. Let’s look at the biblical support for each of these statements.

Bible Teaching 1: There Is Only One God

By this, I mean that there’s only one Maximally Great Being. There is only one spiritual being who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, morally perfect, and uncreated. I’m not denying The Deuteronomy 32 Worldview which I talk about in articles such as “Genesis 10-11: The Tower Of Babel, The Fall Of The gods, and The Divine Council Worldview” or my most recent article “In Defense Of The Divine Council Worldview – A Response To Marcia Montenegro”. I do believe in more than one lowercase g god. Some serve on God’s council as celestial servants, others rebelled, were allotted to the 72 nations of the Ancient Near Eastern world, and took on the identities of pagan gods in order draw worship to themselves and away from Yahweh. When I say “There is only one God”, that should translate in your mind as “There is only one Maximally Great Being”.

Isaiah 44:6
“The LORD is Israel’s king and defender. He is the LORD of Armies. This is what the LORD says: I am the first and the last, and there is no God except me.” (KJV)

Deuteronomy 4:35

“Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him.” (KJV)

1 Kings 8:60
“that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God; there is no other.” (KJV)

James 2:19
“You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” (KJV)

1 Timothy 2:5-6
“For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.” (KJV)

Bible Teaching 2: The Father Is God

This isn’t a point that Jehovah’s Witnesses (nor indeed any heretical group for that matter) will dispute. No one is going to deny that Jesus’ Father is in fact God. Nevertheless, to satisfy my OCD, let me just cite one biblical passage in support of this. 1 Corinthians 8:6 says “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.” (NIV)

Bible Teaching 3: The Son Is God

So far, the Jehovah’s Witnesses won’t have disagreed with me. They also affirm there is one God and that The Father is God. However, they will hotly dispute whether The Son (Jesus Christ) is God. Let’s look at several biblical passages blatantly asserting what the JWs deny.

John 1:1-3, 14 says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. … The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (emphasis mine in bold underlining)

This is the prologue to the gospel of John. In this passage, John describes Jesus as “The Word” (Logos is Greek). He says that the Word is “with God” meaning there’s some kind of distinction between himself and God The Father, yet immediately after, he goes onto say that “The Word was God”. John explicitly says that Jesus is God from the very first verse! He then goes on to describe The Word bringing the entire physical universe into existence. He says that nothing that has been made has been made without being made by the Word. Think about that! John is calling Jesus the Creator of the universe! How do we know that John is talking about Jesus though? Because he goes on to say that “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory…” (verse 14) This passage couldn’t be more obvious and in-your-face if John wanted it to be! Jesus is God, distinct from the Father, created the entire physical universe, and became a human being!

Now, if, as Jehovah’s Witnesses maintain, that Jesus is just “a” god ^[24]St. Michael would fall under the Hebrew definition of elohim, and a member of the divine council, so I don’t object to calling Michael “a” god., then The Bible contradicts itself. Why do I say that? Because in Job 9:8, we read “He [God] alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.” (NIV) In Isaiah 44:24, we read “This is what the Lord says— your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself,” (NIV)

Both of these passages say that God alone is the Creator, he had no help. He alone stretched out the heavens (Job 9:8), He spread out the earth by Himself (Isaiah 44:24). If Jesus were a lesser, lowercase g god, if Jesus were the archangel, Michael, then God would either be lying or mistaken. Now, perhaps the Jehovah’s Witness could respond that in the case of Job 9:8, it is Job who is speaking, and we know that not everything Job and his friends said about God was 100% accurate. However, that explanation won’t work for Isaiah 44:24 because in this verse it is God Himself who is speaking. God had no helpers in creation. So if Jesus is some separate entity from Jehovah, then The New Testament and The Old Testament contradict themselves. However, both testaments are God’s word to us (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 3:16). Ergo, we must come to a different conclusion regarding the person of Jesus. Our other two options are Trinitarianism or Modalism. Both views would avoid the issue as both views would assert that Jesus is identical with the being we call Yahweh or Jehovah. However, Modalism doesn’t work because John clearly distinguishes The Word from God. “The Word was WITH God”. So by process of elimination, we end up at The Trinity. Jesus is God, distinct from the Father, and is responsible for creating all that exists. And it remains true that God was by himself. There was only one Maximally Great Being who brought things into being.

Andreas Kostenberger has a couple of interesting things to say regarding verse 14. in The Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary, he writes; “The Word became flesh (1:14). Rather than using the term ‘(hu)man (being)’ (anthrōpos) or ‘body’ (sōma), John here employs the almost crude term ‘flesh’ (sarx; cf. Rom. 8:3). The affirmation that ‘the Word became flesh’ takes the opening statement (‘in the beginning was the Word’) one step further: That same Word has now taken on human nature. While John does not elaborate on the precise way in which Jesus did so, his contention that deity assumed human nature in Jesus would have been anathema for Greeks, who held to a spirit-matter dualism and could hardly have imagined immaterial Reason becoming a physical being. The idea of gods appearing in human form in itself was not uncommon to the ancients. But John makes clear that the Word did not merely manifest itself as an apparition—as was alleged by the Docetists (from dokeō, “seem”)—but that it literally became flesh.”” ^[25]Arnold, Clinton E.. John, Acts: Volume Two: 002 (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary) (Kindle Locations 618-624). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Kostenberger goes on to say “And made his dwelling among us (1:14). The Greek word for ‘made his dwelling’ (skēnoō) literally means ‘to tabernacle’ (from the word for ‘tent’). This rare term, which is used elsewhere in the New Testament only in the book of Revelation (Rev. 7:15; 12:12; 13:6; 21:3), suggests that in Jesus, God has come to take up residence among his people once again, in a way even more intimate than when he dwelt in the midst of Israel in the tabernacle (Ex. 40:34-35; see further the chart below). Jesus’ ‘making his dwelling among us’ is here related to the Incarnation, that is, his assumption of human flesh. In a slightly different application, both Paul and Peter refer to the human body as a ‘tent’ (cf. 2 Cor. 5:1, 4; 2 Peter 1:13-14). The Matthean equivalent is Jesus as Isaiah’s Immanuel, ‘God with us’ (Matt. 1:23; cf. Isa. 7:14; 8:8, 10; Matt. 18:20; 28:20).” ^[26]Arnold, Clinton E.. John, Acts: Volume Two: 002 (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary) (Kindle Locations 626-633). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

John 1:1-3, 14

Summary Of Data Points

1: The text explicitly says “The Word Was God.” Verse 14 makes it clear that The Word is Jesus.

2. Says the Word was both “With God” and “Was God”. This is very Trinitarian sounding language.

3: The Word created the entire universe; an act The Old Testament says God alone did (Job 9:8, Isaiah 44:24).

4: The Text says The Word “Tabernacled” Among Us”.

Now, I realize that Jehova’s Witnesses have something to say about John calling the Word God. There is a bit of debate in the Greek over the significance of the lack of the definite article preceding the Greek word for God (Theos). However, this booklet will address Trinitarian proof texts like John 1 later on. I will respond to such rebuttals in the next part of this series. For now, I am simply making a positive case for the 5 biblical teachings that, when taken together, only make sense in light of The Doctrine Of The Trinity.

Now let’s turn over to Hebrews 1. This passage says

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.

For to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father'[a]? Or again, ‘I will be his Father, and he will be my Son’? And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him.'[c] In speaking of the angels he says, ‘He makes his angels spirits, and his servants flames of fire.'[d]

But about the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.'[e]

He also says, ‘In the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.’”[f] To which of the angels did God ever say ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet'[g]? Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”

I know The Watchtower Society didn’t exist yet, but every time I read this chapter, it readst as if it was specifically crafted to refute them. In verse 3, the author tells us that Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory” and “The exact representation of his being”. To be the radiance of God’s glory and to represent God’s being exactly can only be done by God Himself. No mere person could be the EXACT representation of His being. Moreover, the text says that He sustains all powerful things by His powerful word. Is this a mere creature we’re talking about? Could even the most powerful of God’s angels hold the universe together? Moreover, in verse 5 we read “For to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father’?” The question sounds rhetorical, as though to say that God has never said this to any of the angels (which would include St. Michael). But what really blows me away about this passage is what The Father says in verses 6-10. He says “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom!” Under divine inspiration, the author of Hebrews tells us that this verse from Psalm 45 has a secondary meaning from its original context, it’s a conversation between God and His son, and here God calls Jesus God! “Your throne, O God will last forever and ever!” Can you imagine God calling you or I “God”? I cannot fathom God saying to me “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever!” I would fall on my face and say “I am not God! You and you alone are God! I have no throne! I am but a mere servant.” No one deserves to be called God but God! Yet that’s God calls Jesus in Hebrews 1:8! In Hebrews 1:10-12, God credits his son with the creation of the entire universe and essentially praises him for it! The verse quoted here is Psalm 102:25-27, and the author of Hebrews puts these words in the mouth of the Father speaking to the Son. I dare say that if Jesus is not a member of The Trinity, then God is committing self-blasphemy here! But, given that God is sinless (see Deuteronomy 32:4), then Jesus must be God in some sense. And given that God is not speaking of Jesus as if he were Jesus (there are second person pronouns all over the place), then the best explanation is a Trinitarian understanding of the text. One member of the Trinity (The Father) is praising another member of The Trinity (The Son). And let us not forget that in Hebrews 1:6, God commands all of his angels to worship His son! Worship! Are we to believe that God, who gave the commandment to have no other gods before him (Exodus 20:3) and who hates idolatry so much that He sent the people of Israel into Babylon for 70 years, would command His angels to worship someone other than Himself? Again, either Jesus is God or God The Father is committing self-blasphemy. No honest reading of the text permits Jesus to be a mere creature, either human or angel.

Hebrews 1

Summary Of Data Points

1: Jesus made the universe.

2: Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the EXACT representation of His being.

3: Jesus sustains all things by His powerful word!

4: God commands the angels to WORSHIP His son!

5: God addresses Jesus in the second person and calls him “God”.

Colossians 1:15-20 says “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

There are four major points that Colossians 1:15-20 is teaching here.

1: Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God.

2: Jesus created absolutely everything.

3: Jesus sustains the existence of the universe.

4: The fullness of deity dwells in Jesus in bodily form.

Such a person sounds a lot like God to me!

Let’s take a quick moment to compare what The Old Testament has to say and what The New Testament has to say.

Let’s turn to another passage. Philippians 2:5-8 says “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man ,he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!”

In this passage, Paul is teaching the church of Phillipi about humility. He uses Christ as an example. Paul says that despite being God of His very nature, He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. Here, we have what we had in John 1 and Hebrews 1. Jesus is God, yet he isn’t God The Father. He is with God The Father. Rather than continue to be seated on the throne, Jesus became incarnate “(i.e “he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant”). And then Paul goes on to say that he humbled himself even to the point of being willing to be crucified. Paul could not be more clear that Jesus is God incarnate.

When it comes to biblical evidence in support of the deity of Christ, we have an embarrassment of riches, so much so that I had an entire one hour talk on my YouTube channel dedicated to JUST the deity of Christ (See “Does The Bible Teach That Jesus Is God?”). I could spend pages and pages just defending this point alone, but for the sake of preventing this article from being lengthier than it needs to be, I will just go into one more example. So far, we have read what The New Testament authors have taught about Jesus, but what did Jesus say about Himself? Did Jesus ever claim to be God Himself? Indeed, he did. And one of my favorite examples comes from Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin in the gospel of Mark.

n Mark 14:60-64, we read “Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, ‘Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?’ But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer. Again the high priest asked him, ‘Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?’ ‘I am,’ said Jesus. ‘And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.’ The high priest tore his clothes. ‘Why do we need any more witnesses?’ he asked. ‘You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?’ They all condemned him as worthy of death.” (NIV)

At first glance, this exchange can seem quite confusing. What was Caiaphas so upset about? Caiaphas may not have believed Jesus’ claims, but it wasn’t blasphemous to call oneself The Messiah or even a son of God. And Son Of Man just means son of a human being, right? Well, actually, Caiaphas was outraged over several things Jesus said which, if false, would indeed be blasphemous.

Jesus’ response to Caiaphas is a double allusion to Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13-14. In the latter passage, we read; “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.” (NIV)

The figure Daniel calls Son Of Man comes riding on the clouds of heaven, he is given authority, glory, and sovereign power, and is worshipped by people from all over the world! This is a pretty exalted figure that Daniel is describing. But it gets even better than that, for the language of cloud riding is inextricably linked to deity. As Old Testament scholar Michael Heiser explains “Throughout the Ugaritic texts, Baal is repeatedly called ‘the one who rides the clouds,’ or ‘the one who mounts the clouds.’ The description is recognized as an official title of Baal. No angel or lesser being bore the title. As such, everyone in Israel who heard this title associated it with a deity, not a man or an angel. Part of the literary strategy of the Israelite prophets was to take this well-known title and attribute it to Yahweh in some way. Consequently, Yahweh, the God of Israel, bears this descriptive title in several places in the Old Testament (Isaiah 19:1; Deuteronomy 33:26; Psalm 68:33; 104:3). For a faithful Israelite, then, there was only one god who ‘rode’ on the clouds: Yahweh.” ^[27]Dr. Michael S. Heiser, from the article “What’s Ugarit Got To Do With Anything?” on Logos.com. –> What’s Ugaritic Got to Do with Anything? (logos.com)

Why The Sanhedrin Found Jesus’ Claim Blasphemous:

1: Jesus claimed to be Daniel 7’s Son of Man who would (A) be given authority, glory, and sovereign power, (B) would be worshipped by people all over the world. and (C) would have a kingdom that would never end.

2: He would come in judgment riding “On The Clouds”. He’s The Cloud Rider. Riding the clouds In Judgment is Yahweh’s Job.

3: He would be “seated at the right hand of God” To sit at God’s right hand is to sit on God’s throne, To sit on God’s throne is to claim equality with God.

It is no wonder at all why Caiaphas tore his clothes in outrage and charged Jesus with blasphemy. Jesus claimed to be God! He could have only been more explicit if he had used the three specific words “I am God” (Ego emi ho theos in Greek). Apart from just saying those three exact words, I can’t imagine any way Jesus could have been more explicit. I must say that this is one of the most explicit claims to deity coming from Jesus’ mouth in all of the gospels. Christians make much of John 10:30 where Jesus said “I and the Father are one”, and John 8:58 where Jesus said “Before Abraham was born, I Am.” And while these are very strong claims to divinity to be sure, but Mark 14 is a much-neglected passage.

Bible Teaching 4: The Holy Spirit Is God

Acts 5:3-4 says “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”

In verse 3, Peter says to Ananias, “You have lied to the Holy Spirit,” and then in verse 4 he says, “You have lied to God,” so, again, showing that the Holy Spirit is God himself.

Bible Teaching 5: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit Are Distinct Persons

Much of the biblical evidence I marshaled in favor of the deity of Christ could also be used to support this point. In passages like John 1, Hebrews 1, and Mark 14, we see that although Jesus is called God (by John and by God The Father Himself), credited with creating the universe, sustaining the universe (both are acts which only God can perform), and being commanded to be worshipped by angels, and so on, nevertheless there is a clear distinction between Jesus and The Father. John 1:1 says “In the beginning was The Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God.” The Word is God, make no mistake about that, but He’s also with God. John paradoxically phrases his prologue so as to assert a high Christology without asserting modalism at the same time! In Hebrews 1, there is a literal conversation going on between God The Father and his Son. Unless we are to adopt the absurd idea that God talks to himself, the best explanation is that there are two persons here. Again, second person pronouns are all over the place. “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever.”

However, allow me to share another place where the distinctions of the persons is to be found; it is in the account of Jesus’ baptism in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew 3:13-17 says “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.'” (NIV)

In this passage, you have all 3 persons present; you have The Son being baptized, the The Holy Spirit descending from Heaven like a dove and alighting on The Son, and you have the Father speaking from Heaven describing Jesus in third person terms. “This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.” It would make no sense for God to describe Jesus like this if the two were one person. God would basically be saying “I am my own son. I love myself. With myself, I am well pleased.” Moreover, for The Holy Spirit to come down from Heaven and alight on Jesus would be to say that God descended from Heaven and alighted on himself. A Modalistic or Oneness Pentecostal interpretation simply cannot make sense of this passage.

Summary and Conclusion

We are only a quarter of the way through this Watchtower Society booklet. There will be a part 2 in order to respond to the rest of the historical and theological fallacies made in it. My assessment of this booklet so far is not a positive one. The arguments put forth are weak, and two of the sections supposedly showing that neither The Old Testament nor The New Testament teaches the doctrine of The Trinity did not succeed at its task. This section didn’t even offer arguments, but quoted sources (some of which weren’t even Christian) merely ASSERTING that the doctrine of The Trinity isn’t taught in either testament. But as we saw in this response article, there is at least a two person Godhead in The Old Testament, and there is a Trinity in the New Testament. The argument that the Trinity is too complex, and, ergo, would not be taught in The Bible is also misguided. Whoever wrote this booklet has not fully engaged with the literature on this subject. It is true that there are Christians who either hastily throw up their hands and cry “Mystery!” or offer misguided analogies that actually don’t show the coherence of a Three-In-One God, however, there are Christian philosophers and theologians who have marshaled models of the Trinity which do show, in my opinion, the logical coherence of the doctrine. God is not the author of confusion, but anyone who has read The Bible knows that not everyone understands what God is saying at first. The Disciples are prime examples of this as they were quite confused over the idea of Jesus having to die.

So far, the only thing the booklet has gotten right concern the importance of this debate and the authority of scripture. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are quite right to make this a salvific issue. If one of us is right, we will stand condemned before God for not worshipping Him as He is. The JWs either reject the Son and ergo inadvertently reject the Father also (see 1 John 2:23) for they claim to worship God, but in rejecting other persons of The Trinity they reject the whole Godhead. ^[28]My appeal to 1 John 2:23 is support for this. If God is a Trinity, then God is a package deal. You cannot choose to worship one person of the Trinity and refuse the others worship. Consequently, to … Continue reading On the other hand, if they’re right, then I’m an idolater who worships someone who is just a man. However, as can be seen from the biblical case given above, I am not an idolater. I worship Jesus because the word of God tells me that He is God. He is the word become flesh (John 1:14) who created the entire universe (John 1:3, Hebrews 1:10, Colossians 1:15-16), who is called God by the apostle John (John 1:1), by the apostle Paul (Colossians 1:15, Philippians 2:5-8), and by God The Father (Hebrews 1:8, 10). Yet while being God, He is distinct from the Father. “The Word was with God”.

In part 2, we will look at the rest of the article. The booklet will claim that the early church fathers did not teach the doctrine of The Trinity and that the idea actually developed over time. We will put those ideas under scrutiny in the next article.