The doctrine of the Trinity is simply a confederation of three different god-persons united in a Godhead call a single God (Colossians 2:9 / I John 5:7-8). Though the official Nicaea Council of 325 CE has the three god persons as part of the same substance, the god-persons themselves are completely separate from one another in "personhood" nonetheless. The Trinity is in a sense polytheistic in nature but operating under a monotheistic title..
The Trinity and its god-persons can be broken down in the following way:
- God the Father - god person #1 - separated in person from the other god-persons: God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.
- God the Son - god-person #2 - separated in person from the other god-persons: God the Father and God the Holy Ghost.
- God the Holy Ghost - god-person #3 - separated in person from the other god-persons: God the Father and God the Son.
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Another question would be, what is the actual name of the third person in the Godhead? Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit is not a name but a title or office position. If the other god-persons known as God the Father and God the Son both have specific names, why doesn't the person of the Holy Ghost have one. According to Matthew 28:19 and the Trinitarian mindset he is suppose to have one.
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Though falling short of its goal it was the Oneness Pentecostal movements that have tried to fix these "Trinitarian multiple god-person problems" within the Christian faith by simply making Jesus and his father the same "person" which goes against Revelation 3:5,21. But to truly fix the Trinity multi-god person problem, I believe one has to travel back to the original Bible - the Hebrew scriptures. There in the Hebrew scriptures (though the Trinintarians go to great lengths to try to prove otherwise) you won't find Trinity (multiple-person gods) issues. Though I have never received an answer, I love to ask Trinitarians, which person of the Trinity Godhead made the following statement:
"I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else." - Isaiah 45:5-6
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Check out all those singular personal pronouns. Just in the short statement above I counted three I's and another three me's along with four declarations of the personal pronoun speaker (God) of being alone. All three god-persons of the Trinity could not have made the singular personal pronouns at the same time without being the exact same in personhood. So, again to all Trinitarians, feel free to post a comment telling me what god-person in the Trinity made the above statement. If it was God the Father (as the original Hebrew states: "I am Jehovah") tell me why He didn't consider the other god-persons when He stated, "there is no God beside me".
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Also concerning the Hebrew scriptures, you won't find a need of a second-person in a Godhead Trinity to be your savior.
"...and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." -Isaiah 45:21-22
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Christian Proof Text of the Trinity
One of the main arguments that pro-Trinity Christian groups use is that the Hebrew name "Elohim" (actually a title taken from the Canaanites' god El) is given in plural form revealing the Trinity Godhead plural nature within the one true God of Israel. 1 This shows their willingness to use a very limited knowledge of Hebrew while disregarding the rest. The Trinity scholars who know better still use this lie to convince their listeners.
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Out of the four main names of God used in the Hebrew Bible (Jehovah, Adoni, Shaddai, and Elohim) Elohim is the lest personal. It simply means "God" as in the title of an object of worship. Elohim is not a personal name just like the title "husband" is not my personal name though I carry that title and office. The title "Elohim" is also used throughout the Hebrew scriptures in reference to false gods 2 which definitely can't be said concerning the personal names of God: Jehovah, Adoni, Shaddai! Not only were false gods referred to as "Elohim" but also judges, angels, and even an altar were referred to as "Elohim"3 again, something the names Jehovah, Adoni, and Shaddai could not have been used for. Why don't the Trinity scholars point this out? They simply know that such information undermines their Trinitarian doctrine.
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The Canaanites who lived among the Israelites, had a pantheon of gods with the head of that pantheon called "El" who was the mythological father of Baal. The proper name of El meant "power" or "powerful". For the Israelite to take off the plural ending of Elohim when referring to their one God of Israel without tying it to personality trait of their God in such usage as in "El Shaddai" (God Almighty) in Genesis 28:3 (notice the singularity of Elohim in such a title)4 would seem to be referring to the Canaanite god of El or one of the gods under El. In other words, for an Israelite to refer to "El" by itself would seem to be referring to one of the many Canaanite gods (elohim), or El, the father of Baal. The Israelites therefore referred to their one God as "Elohim" (of which no one Canaanite god including the head of the pantheon is named) as all-powerful to imply that their God takes the place of the entire Pantheon of Canaanite gods in power and uniqueness. For the Israelites of the day, the one Hebrew God makes up and was the very source of all the many powers that the El-Canaanites gods represented (i.e. god of lightning, god of grain, god of rain, ect.) rolled into one by saying that He is "Elohim"!
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God explains His true non-truine name to his one-person "Elohim" named Moses. Did you caught that? God said unto the "one person" Moses: "I have made thee an "Elohim" to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet." (Exodus 7:1) Why didn't God say to the one person Moses, I have made thee an El (singular) to Pharaoh? Again, why isn't this made mention of by the Trinitarian Hebrew scholars, for they avoid expounding on that particular scripture like one of the ten plagues (pun intended)?
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The one true non-truine God explains His name to His personal Elohim (Moses) on earth this way:
"And Elohim spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of El Shaddai (singular form) but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them." - Exodus 6:2-3
It must be noted that the name Jehovah derives from the meaning "I am" (see Exodus 3:14) to "He is". Both personal pronouns in these most personalized names are singular in nature. God was telling Moses His "mystery" name of which He didn't even reveal to "His friend" Abraham! (II Chronicles 20:7 / Isaiah 41:8)! O ye Trinitarians, let me ask again, what Godhead "person" of the Trinity spoke unto Moses and used the personal pronoun "I" for His name when He said, "ahyeh-ahshear-ahyeh" I Am that I AM? For it is through this singular personal pronoun natured name that He stated the following: "this is "my" name for ever, and this is "my" memorial unto all generations." (Exodus 3:15). Moreover, the prophet Zechariah states that during the Messianic Age: "And Jehovah shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Jehovah, and his name one. (Zechariah 14:9) So how is it that you can come up with a three-person Godhead based Trinity when comparing and considering Exodus 3:15 and Zechariah 14:9 together? Why have countless Jews been murdered down through the ages in the shadows of your Trinity crosses, while no Jewish movements ever killed or even sought to kill Christians based upon their trinitarian beliefs?5
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Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness..." - Genesis 1:26
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Most serious trinitarians understand that Genesis 1:26 is a royal majestic decree made before a heavenly court (see Isaiah 6:1-2, 8). However, I don't think that they fully understand the significance of the statement "our image". The "creation of man" of which this scripture is concerning, is the very last of the creation events and is the very climax of all creation, and is given dominion over all that already had been up until that point, created (Genesis 1:26). The sum of all creation i.e. image of all creation is reflected in Adam. Even the adomah (land / ground / earth) is reflected in Adam (man / mankind) from which the first man is so named. It becomes easy to see that the original Hebrew gives even New Testament texts such as I Corinthians 15:47 a deeper meaning. Does the "Us" and "Our" image that God uses in Genesis 1:26 mean, "God and the earth" as in Jeremiah 22:29? Does it mean "God and the angels" (not to be confused with winged seraphims as in Isaiah 6:2) that appeared in the exact same "image" and even called "man" in the Bible as with Abraham (Genesis 18:2) and to Jacob (Genesis 32:24). Does it mean "God and all of creation" where God being the King makes a decree to His creation being His willing subjects as when a president making a State of the Union address states "Let us" do such and such. The answer to all these questions is "yes". What it doesn't refer to is the Father-person of the Trinity speaking to the others (Son-person and Holy Spirit-person) urging them of the same God-person status to following His leading idea. My question to the Trinitarians is why isn't man "three persons" like the image of the Trinity when man was made in the same image? 6
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...and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me. - Isaiah 48:16
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I heard one woman a few years ago who had called into a Hal Lindsey's radio show really complaining and wanting to know why the Christian non-trinitarians (also including those bad O Jews) can't plainly see the Trinity all through the above verse. She probably wouldn't like me telling her that, that very verse she was holding so dear to her trinitarian heart, was not only translated by Christan Trinitarians but that it by itself actually proves the Trinity doctrine wrong. When reading the text word for word in the Hebrew it goes (flows) like this: "And now, Adoni Jehovah has sent me and His Spirit". Right away one can see the context meaning change from a Trinity proof text to a sort of "Oneness" proof text. Of course questions should now be raised.
1. Why wasn't the text translated in the same manner and method as the Hebrew gave it?
2. Does the Hebrew reading imply that Jehovah's Spirit is a whole other person, separated in personhood from that of Jehovah?
3. Why didn't the second Son-God person have anything to do with the sending of Isaiah? I mean Isaiah according to the KJV text, took time to specifically name the first and third persons of the Trinity, so why not included the Son-God person too?
4. Is the "spirit" of Elijah different in personhood than Elijah himself? (See II Kings 2:15)
5. Can we determine by continuing in the text what the proper name of "the Spirit" is that sent Isaiah? I mean, the Trinitarians really don't have a proper personal name for Him, just the title of "Holy Spirit"?
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Actually, the very next verse (Isaiah 48:17) reads: "Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am Jehovah thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go." So if we place together the two verses (16 and 17) along with following the context through, a complete picture emerges. It is not that God and His other-person Spirit is sending out Isaiah to declare something on his own as the KJV might indicate in the minds of Trinitarians, but God places His very person in Spirit form on Isaiah (anointing Isaiah) for a declaration to the people of Israel. And with that anointing the "Spirit of the "one" God of Israel" upon Isaiah, the anointing-causing Spirit speaks of "Himself" giving His proper name while stating in the Hebrew: "I am Jehovah your God"! Come on Trinitarians, learn some Hebrew and get Hebrew real! It's absolutely asinine to willfully believe in twisted translated scriptures while stretching to denying the easy to understand text of what the Hebrew Bible clearly states and its contextual meaning!
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Notes:
1. The plural masculine noun suffix in the Hebrew is generally (but not always) given and pronounced "eem" or "im" at the end of the noun. It has the same effect as adding the letter "s" at the end of a noun in English. "Elohim" can be translated as "gods" in the Hebrew Bible. For example, the words "God" and "gods" are spelled the same in the Hebrew in Deuteronomy 8:19
2. Even though the KJV and other Christian translation carry it, there are no term "false gods" as in "false Elohim" in the Hebrew Bible, just Elohim. Example: "Thou shalt have no other gods (Elohim) before me" - Exodus 20:3
3. Judges are called Elohim: Exodus 21:6 / Exodus 22:8.
An altar is called Elohim: Genesis 33:20.
Angels are called Elohim: Psalms 8:6
4. To the Trinitarians; if the name "Elohim" denotes the triune nature of God, why doesn't the truine God refer to Himself as Elohim or Elyai Shaddai instead of the singular "El Shaddai"? Isn't it ironic that Elohim states: "I am the El Shaddai; walk before me, and be thou perfect." - Genesis 17:1 (Also see Genesis 35:11).
5. Though the later writings of the New Testament gave hints of a Trinity (I John 5:7) the doctrine of the Trinity wasn't ratified by Christianity until the Nicene Council in 325 CE. The picture at the top is taking from the Nicene Council decree. Paul (the New Testament chief overseer) never implies that Jesus was one of three "persons" making up the Trinity (I Corinthians 11:3) but rather the "Godhead" was a system that God (singular) used for revealing Himself (Romans 1:20 / Colossians 1:15).
6. Some will use the male and female of mankind (Genesis 5:2) as a type of the Trinity. However, there is a reason why out of all the creation Adam was originally alone and without a mate. If God had created two separate individuals as He did with the animal kingdom in an original creation that was to be after His image then we could say God was indeed multiple in personhood. The reality is that man in singular form is an attribute of God, and woman (also in singular form) is the image of man. The New Testament scriptures of Ephesians 1:4 and I Corinthians 11: 7-8 should confirm this to the Trinitarians. Besides, giving man is both male and female doesn't add up to there being "three" as to somehow reflect a truine Trinity Godhead called God.
