Whatever one believes about the nature of God, one must know that the traditional Christian doctrine explaining Him never emerged until a full three centuries after the ministry of the Lord Jesus.

.

         For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), “I am the LORD, and there is none else. I have not spoken in secret, in some dark land; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, ‘Seek Me in a waste place;’ I, the LORD, speak righteousness, declaring things that are upright.

         “Gather yourselves and come; draw near together, you fugitives of the nations; they have no knowledge, who carry about their wooden idol and pray to a god who cannot save. Declare and set forth your case; indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the LORD?

         “And there is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none except Me. Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself, the word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. They will say of Me, ‘Only in the LORD are righteousness and strength.’ Men will come to Him, and all who were angry at Him will be put to shame.” [Isaiah 45:18-24] [1] 

THE MISSING TRINITY DOCTRINE

         The Lord never spoke of any Trinity Doctrine. There is no mention of a Trinity Doctrine throughout the entirety of Old Testament Scripture or even within the many OT apocryphal works. There is no mention of a Trinity Doctrine in the New Testament either, or in any NT apocryphal works, such as the Book of Enoch, for example, which was quoted by New Covenant writers and which appears at least a tad New Agey. There is no mention of a Trinity Doctrine within the vast library of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date to the first century BC and first century AD. The many Jewish sects of that time period, including the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Scribes, Essenes, and Zealots never mentioned a Trinity Doctrine. There is not even any mention of a Trinity Doctrine within the Jewish oral law in general—the Mishna, Talmud, etc. Monotheistic Muslims and Jews think the entire idea of God being composed of three persons is preposterous.

        But let’s put all that aside for now. Let’s say that when some second century AD Christian philosophers, theorists, and other interpreters began straying from the pure New Covenant writings and the powerful witness of the original believers and began attributing Roman, Greek, and Egyptian triad formulas to the Christian God that they were on the right track. Let’s say they thought they were acting in good faith in order to gain greater cerebral and intellectual understanding of the Christian God and that they attempted to make the New Covenant writings less confusing and more rational.

         Let’s also say that as the third century progressed and this idea was latched onto by a greater number of “church fathers” that they were really onto something deep and profound, and that they began finalizing a previously unknown great revelation, a revelation that was even unknown to such OT stalwarts as Adam, Abel, Seth, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, and David. And which also, incredibly, somehow remained unknown to all the powerfully anointed-by-the-Spirit-of-God OT prophets put together, including Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and especially Isaiah, as quoted above. This proposed, seemingly previous great unknown revelation had also escaped the notice of the Lord’s close associate and forerunner, the powerfully anointed John the Immerser, who never mentioned it or even alluded to it.

         And let’s say these early “church fathers” of the second through fourth centuries AD were incredibly brilliant spiritually, so brilliant and receptive that they discovered and formulated something brand new (but was somehow there all along), though no one else had ever had the understanding or the “eyes to see” to see it. Such spiritually blind people who never saw it also included all the apostles, who were never aware of a Trinity Doctrine and never taught it. These included even the apostles Peter and Paul, the latter of whom wrote most of the New Covenant epistles by the inspiration of God and learned the Gospel through direct communication with God all alone out in the desert. He must have somehow missed that particular class. And let’s say when the final rendition of what we know at present as the classic Trinity Doctrine was authorized and finalized at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381 that they had come up with something that the Lord Jesus Himself either did not know about or never taught if He did know about it.

      It appears as though their great brilliance and spiritual knowledge had even superseded His. Wow. No wonder they also officially removed His Name from water baptism.

         © 2018 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.

[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.