Why are Trinitarians decieved into believe the bible teaches the Trinity when it doesn't?

Question

I am a Christian but all Christians do NOT believe in the Trinity. I believe in Oneness (God is One not Three in One). Many dont know that 1 John 5: 7-8 was added to the bible and was not found in hundreds of Greek manuscripts but only 8 later manuscripts and in the first 4 it was only a note. I believe that God the Father is the only God according to (1 Cor 8:6 etc.) and God (Father) manifested himself in flesh which is Jesus (1 Tim 3: 16) and in Jesus dwells the Fulness of the Godhead bodily (Colo 2: 9). Jesus is God by the Father dwelling in his body, he is not a seperate person. People don't understand John 1: 1 (logos). The word is not seperate from the Father. According to Ireneaus "An disciple of John the apostle" The Father was the only Fulness, he also wrote that if their was another besides the Father, then the Father would not be the Fulness at all nor would he be God. Jesus is God becasue the deity in him is the One true God, The Father, their is no other God or persons.

Answer 1

It looks as though you just explained that there IS a trinity..to me the trinity means three distinct but one and as you said Jesus is God by the Father dwelling in his body..
It's like a pie. It is cut into three pieces but is still one whole pie.

I saw a guy that said he was an "apostolic christian" say the same thing yesterday...Do you have any idea how "off" this view is?..You are coming into agreement with all other religions that deny the deity of Jesus Christ..Your exact words are what a Muslim guy used the other day as well, when trying to explain to Christians there is no trinity..you are helping them build their case..

Answer 2

People who do not believe in the Trinity are not Christians but followers of the ancient heresy of Arianism which has been condemned in the fourth century by the Church. Anyone using the Bible to say that there is no Trinity is approaching the text eisegetically and are deceived.

Irenaeus

"Naturally the Son is fully divine: 'the Father is God, and the Son is God, for whatever is begotten of God is God'. The Spirit, too, although Irenaeus nowhere expressly designates Him God, clearly ranked as divine in his eyes, for He was God's Spirit, ever welling up from His being. Thus we have Irenaeus's vision of the Godhead, the most complete, and also most explicitly Trinitarian, to be met with before Tertullian. Its second-century traits stand out clearly, particularly its representation of the Triad by the imagery, not of three coequal persons (this was the analogy to be employed by the post-Nicene fathers), but rather of a single personage, the Father Who is the Godhead itself, with His mind, or rationality, and His wisdom. The motive for this approach, common to all Christian thinkers of this period, was their intense concern for the fundamental tenet of monotheism, but its unavoidable corollary was a certain obscuring of the position of the Son and the Spirit as 'Persons' (to use the jargon of later theology) prior to their generation or emission. Because of its emphasis on the 'economy', this type of thought has been given the label 'economic Trinitarianism'. The description is apt and convenient so long as it is not assumed that Irenaeus's recognition of, and preoccupation with, the Trinity revealed in the 'economy' prevented him from recognizing also the mysterious three-in-oneness of the inner life of the Godhead. The whole point of the great illustrative image which he, like his predecessors, employed, that of a man with his intellectual and spiritual functions, was to bring out, however inadequately, the fact that there are real distinctions in the immanent being of the unique, indivisible Father, and that while these were only fully manifested in the 'economy', they were actually there from all eternity." (J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p 107)

In Christ
Fr. Joseph

Answer 3

You don't mention the Holy Spirit at all which is of course referenced in the bible.
I am also confused as how they added 1 John 5:7-8...what did it say there before? or did it go from 1John 5: 6 and skip to 9?

Also Jesus refers to God as His Father, not as himself,
John 14:6 "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

What about the following?

Matthew 28:19 "Go therefore ad make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the San and of the Holy Spirit"

Sorry I am sticking with the Trinity.

Answer 4

Your argument is unbiblical. You fail to take in consideration the words of Jesus himself when he prays to the Father. Why would Jesus pray to himself? Your viewpoint total discounts John 3:16-17, which is the foundation for Christianity. You are also refuting centuries of Christian theology. What you have done is create a religion based upon the Father and not Jesus; therefore, you are not a Christian, but something else.

Answer 5

AND THE WORD OF GOD SAYS (HOLY BIBLE)
The Trinity of God
M't:3:16: And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:
M't:3:17: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Answer 6

The word Trinity is not in the Bible, but the triune character of God, one God, is thrughout the Bible.

Answer 7

Then you are one who does not believe the Bible.

Here are specific scriptures in both the Tonakh and the New Testament. Quotes are by God, Jesus, disciples and apostles.

A Child is to be born as a man who will be the Mighty God.
Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Jehovah says that He and the coming Redeemer are eternal.
Isaiah 44:6
"Thus says YHWH, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer [Yeshua], the YHWH of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God.'"

Jesus confirmed the above as well as His being the Almighty.
Revelation 1:8
Jesus said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Again, Who is the Redeemer? Who is the Savior? YHWH.
Isaiah 49:26
"All flesh shall know That I, YHWH, am your Savior, And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob."

Before He was born, Jesus identified the trinity.
Isaiah 48:16
"Come near to Me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; From the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord GOD and His SPIRIT Have sent ME."

Three distinct personalities are seen in Jesus' baptism.
Matthew 3:16
When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."


Jesus does not rebuke Thomas for calling Him God, but rather promises a blessing to those who would believe later.
John 20:28
And Thomas answered and said to Jesus, "My Lord and my God!"
Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Paul confirms that Jesus is God.
Titus 2:11-14
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men... looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

Jews sought to stone Jesus for claiming to be the eternal.
John 8
“Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”
Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”
Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

Jesus says that He and the Father are ONE (heis in Greek which means literally the number 1) Jews seek to stone Him for claiming to be God incarnate.
John 10
"I and My Father are one."
Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him.
Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?”
The Jews answered Him, saying, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God."

****Important Note****
The whole reason the Jews sought to kill Jesus was because He, being a man, made Himself out to be God. If He was NOT God, then He was rightly put to death and was then a sacrifice WITH sin and blemish. Since He IS God, then His death was that of the Lamb WITHOUT spot or blemish.

To say it is not supported by scripture is to fall into extreme error and you will also have many contradictions to deal with. You will also have strange bedfellows who will support this error. http://schnebin.blogspot.com/2007/04/strange-bedfellows.html


I explain this and greater detail regarding the trinity in my study link below if you wish more detail on this question. http://www.schneblin.com/studies/pdfs/is_god_one_or_three.pdf

Answer 8

The truth is that the Bible does not teach the Trinity. The Oxford Companion to the Bible's opening words under the article "Trinity" enlightening: "Because the Trinity is such an important part of later Christian doctrine, it is striking that the term does not appear in the New Testament. Likewise, the developed concept of three coequal partners in the Godhead found in later creedal formulations cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the [New Testament] canon" (Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan, editors, 1993, p. 782, emphasis added throughout these quotations).

The term later is a vital key in understanding why general Christian belief has been burdened with the Trinity doctrine. Post-firstcentury theologians originally conceived the doctrine, and others added to and elaborated on it down through the centuries.

Notice this admission in the New Bible Dictionary: "The term 'Trinity' is not itself found in the Bible. It was first used by Tertullian at the close of the 2nd century, but received wide currency and formal elucidation only in the 4th and 5th centuries" (1996, "Trinity").

The same dictionary explains that "the formal doctrine of the Trinity was the result of several inadequate attempts to explain who and what the Christian God really is . . . To deal with these problems the Church Fathers met in 325 at the Council of Nicaea to set out an orthodox biblical definition concerning the divine identity." However, it wasn't until 381, "at the Council of Constantinople, [that] the divinity of the Spirit was affirmed . . ."

Another theological source admits that there was "an impression of binitarianism [that is, two in unity, the Father and Son] given by much second- and third-century thought . . . Pluralist thinkers . . . maintained the full co-presence of the two (later three) distinct entities within the Godhead . . ." (Alan Richardson, editor, A Dictionary of Christian Theology, 1969, p. 345, emphasis added).

We see, then, that the doctrine of the Trinity wasn't formalized until long after the Bible was completed and the apostles were long dead in their graves. It took later theologians several centuries to sort out what they believed concerning the Holy Spirit. Regrettably, the Trinity doctrine has been a major barrier to clear comprehension of the biblical truth that God is a divine family.

Continuing with the account in The Oxford Companion to the Bible: "While the New Testament writers say a great deal about God, Jesus, and the Spirit of each, no New Testament writer expounds on the relationship among the three in the detail that later Christian writers do" (p. 782). These scholars are, of course, somewhat understat- ing what is obvious to those who comprehend the biblical explanation of God.

Spurious addition in 1 John 5:7-8

Some Bible translators of past ages were so zealous to find support for their belief in the Trinity in the Scriptures that they literally added it. A case in point is 1 John 5:7-8. It now reads in the King James Version (KJV), also known as the Authorized Version (AV): "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." The words in italics are simply not a part of the accepted New Testament manuscripts. Regrettably, in this particular passage the New King James Version (NKJV) reads essentially the same.

Most Bible commentaries tell us this is a spurious addition to the biblical text. Consider the words of The New Bible Commentary: Revised: "Notice that AV includes additional material at this point. But the words are clearly a gloss and are rightly excluded by RSV [Revised Standard Version] even from its margins" (1970, p. 1269).

In the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), 1 John 5:7-8 correctly reads, "There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree." John personifies these three elements as providing testimony, just as Solomon personified wisdom in the book of Proverbs.

"The textual evidence is all against 1 John 5:7," explains Neil Lightfoot. "Of all the Greek manuscripts, there are only two which contain it. These two manuscripts are of very late dates, one from the fourteenth or fifteenth century and the other from the sixteenth century. Both clearly show this verse to be translated from the Latin" (How We Got the Bible, 1963, pp. 56-57).

The Expositor's Bible Commentary also dismisses the KJV and NKJV versions of 1 John 5:7 as "obviously a late gloss with no merit" (Glenn Barker, Vol. 12, 1981, p. 353). Peake's Commentary on the Bible is very incisive in its comments as well: "The famous inter- polation after 'three witnesses' is not printed in RSV and rightly [so] . . . No respectable Greek [manuscript] contains it. Appearing first in a late 4th century Latin text, it entered the Vulgate and finally NT of Erasmus" (p. 1038).

Again, Trinity did not come into common use as a religious term until after the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, several centuries after the last books of the New Testament were complete. It is not a biblical concept.

Why sometimes called 'He' and 'Him'

Many people assume that the Holy Spirit is a personal entity, based on references to the Spirit as "he," "him" and "himself" in the New Testament. This confusion arises from two factors—the use of gender-inflected pronouns in the Greek language and bias on the part of some translators.

Greek, as do the Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian, etc.), invokes a specific gender for every noun. Every object, animate or inanimate, is designated as either masculine, feminine or neuter. The gender is often unrelated to whether the item is indeed masculine or feminine. For example, in French the word livre, meaning "book," is of the masculine gender and is referred to by a pronoun equivalent to the English "he." And in Spanish, mesa, or "table," is in the feminine. Clearly, although these nouns have gender, their gender does not refer to actually being male or female.

In the English language, in contrast, most nouns that do not refer to objects that are male or female are referred to in the neuter sense, with the pronoun "it."

In Greek, both masculine and neuter words are used to refer to the Holy Spirit. The Greek word translated "Helper," "Comforter" and "Advocate" in John 14-16 is parakletos, a masculine word in Greek and thus referred to in these chapters by Greek pronouns equivalent to the English "he," "him," "his," "himself," "who" and "whom."

Because of the masculine gender of parakletos, these pronouns are grammatically correct in Greek. But to translate these into English as "he," "him," etc., is grammatically incorrect.

By the same token, you would never translate a particular French sentence as "I'm looking for my book so I can read her." While this grammatical construction makes sense in the French language, it is wrong in English. Thus the supposition that the Holy Spirit is a person to be referred to as "he" or "him" is incorrect.

Neuter in nature, not personal

There is absolutely no justification for referring to the term "Holy Spirit" with masculine pronouns, even in Greek. The Greek word pneuma, usually translated "spirit" but also translated "wind" and "breath," is a grammatically neuter word. So, in the Greek language, pronouns equivalent to the English "it," "its," "itself," "which" or "that" are properly used in referring to this word for "spirit."

Yet, when the King James or Authorized Version was produced (early in the 1600s), the doctrine of the Trinity had already been accepted for more than 1,000 years. So naturally the translators of that version usually chose personal rather than neutral pronouns when referring to the Holy Spirit in English (see, for example, John 16:1314; Romans 8:26).

Notice, however, that in some passages in the KJV the translators properly used neuter pronouns. Romans 8:16, for example, says: "The Spirit itself [not himself] beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." Matthew 10:20 and 1 Peter 1:11 are other places in the KJV where the proper neuter pronouns are employed.

Regrettably, later English translators of the Bible have gone even further than the King James translators in referring to the Holy Spirit as masculine rather than neuter. Thus the Holy Spirit is almost always referred to as "he" or "him" in the more-modern versions. This reflects not linguistic accuracy, but the doctrinal bias or incorrect assumptions of Bible translators.

Answer 9

Okay. Thanks for telling us what you believe. Time for me to go to church services now.