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The anti-Gospel

The gospel is based on Jesus' Sonship, Temptation, Death, and Resurrection. However, the Trinity doctrine perverts each of these aspects of the gospel.

Topic Gospel anti-Gospel Implication
Sonship Son of God Sonship is a metaphor Another Jesus (2 Cor. 11:4)
Temptation Tempted like us Could not; would not be tempted by sin Cannot sympathize with us (Heb. 2:18; 4:15)
Death I was dead (Rev. 1:5, 18) The Son of God did not die because God cannot die No atonement (Heb. 2:14)
Resurrection Christ in you Christ is in Heaven; the Third Person of the Trinity is in you He who has the Son has life (1 John 5:12)

1. Sonship. The Bible tells us that Jesus is the literal Son of God. He was declared to be the Son of God by: the Father, Jesus himself, the angel Gabriel, John the Baptist, demons, his disciples, and throughout the balance of the New Testament. See Jesus, the Son of God.

However, trinitarians teach us:

  • "the father-son image cannot be literally applied to the divine Father-Son relationship within the Godhead. The Son is not the natural, literal Son of the Father. A natural child has a beginning, while within the Godhead the Son is eternal. The term “Son” is used metaphorically when applied to the Godhead." —Adventist Biblical Research, "A Question of Sonship," Ángel Manuel Rodríguez. (For further discussion on this see: What is the issue?)
  • "The Scripture nowhere calls Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God, and He is never called Son at all prior to the incarnation, except in prophetic passages in the Old Testament. The term "Son" itself is a functional term, as is the term "Father" and has no meaning apart from time." —Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1985, pp. 117.
  • "Son is an incarnational title of Christ. Though His sonship was anticipated in the Old Testament (Prov. 30:4), He did not become a Son until He was begotten into time...The Bible nowhere speaks of the eternal Sonship of Christ...He was always God, but He became Son. He had not always had the title of Son. That is His incarnation title. Eternally He is God, but only from His incarnation has He been Son...Christ was not Son until His incarnation. Before that He was eternal God." —The MacArthur New Testament Commentary HEBREWS, 1983, Commentary on Hebrews 1:4-5. Note: Years later, John MacArthur made a retraction on his position in the article, Reexamining the Eternal Sonship of Christ. This was as a result of critics questioning his belief in the deity of Jesus. However, his retraction is not necessarily an improvement on his views.
  • "In theology, for example, [C.S.] Lewis argues that much of what we have to say about God is metaphorical. Even a statement as simple as “Jesus Christ is the Son of God” is a metaphor. Jesus is NOT a son as we understand sonship in human experience. There was a time when my son did not exist—then he came into existence. But Jesus has always existed with the Father. They have a relationship which is best described as one like sonship—but for earthly, human understanding, what’s left is a metaphor." —C. S. Lewis and the Apt Metaphor.

Trinitarians also run into the problem of the "eternal Sonship" doctrine which according to Adam Clarke is a self-contradiction.

2. Temptation. Tempted in all points yet without sin. See Hebrews 2:17-18; 4:15-16; Romans 8:3; Hebrews 5:2, 8-9. Jesus had to conquer sin in the flesh. If Jesus conquered sin in the flesh, then he had to do battle in the flesh. Otherwise, his temptations were not temptations. Jesus was made perfect through suffering. Yet, God is not tempted with evil (James 1); that is, God cannot act against His nature. It would be impossible for Him to sin. Indeed this is how some trinitarians describe it:

Yet, EGW tells us that "He could have sinned; He could have fallen."

  • 13MR 18.1: Be careful, exceedingly careful as to how you dwell upon the human nature of Christ. Do not set Him before the people as a man with the propensities of sin. He is the second Adam. The first Adam was created a pure, sinless being, without a taint of sin upon him; he was in the image of God. He could fall, and he did fall through transgressing. Because of sin, his posterity was born with inherent propensities of disobedience. But Jesus Christ was the only begotten Son of God. He took upon Himself human nature, and was tempted in all points as human nature is tempted. He could have sinned; He could have fallen, but not for one moment was there in Him an evil propensity. He was assailed with temptations in the wilderness, as Adam was assailed with temptations in Eden.
  • If Jesus had sinned, the stone would not have been rolled away.

3. Death. The question is whether Christ's death was divine or human. If you believe in the Trinity, how could one-third of the "one indivisible God" die and lie in the tomb dead? The Trinity doctrine makes the death of Christ impossible, because God is indivisible. If Jesus died, then the Trinity died. Yet the Bible tells us that Jesus did die.

  • 1 Corinthians 15:3-4: ...Christ died...
  • Isaiah 53:10: ...His soul an offering for sin...
  • Acts 2:27: ...thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
  • Hebrews 9:14: ...the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God... [Christ laid down his eternal spirit on the cross!]
  • Hebrews 2:14: ...through death...he destroyed death
  • Revelation 1:18: I...was dead...I am alive...and have the keys of hell and of death.

It was not a body that died on the cross, but a soul who died. Christ laid down his eternal spirit on the cross. However, here is how some trinitarians describe it:

  • "The three persons share one indivisible nature. Each person of the Godhead is by nature and essence God, and the fullness of the deity dwells in each of them. On the other hand, each person of the Godhead is inseparably connected to the other two." —Ekkehardt Mueller, Reflections—A BRI Newsletter, July, 2008, p. 8.
  • "No dead man can raise himself. He [Christ] only was able to raise Himself, who though His Body was dead, was not dead. For He raised up that which was dead. He raise up Himself, who in Himsef was alive, but in his Body that was to be raised was dead." —St. Augustine, "Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament", Sermon XVII, p. 527.
  • "So, while Christ's body was dead, He remained alive (since God cannot die)...So, would it have been possible that Jesus through His divine nature even while His human body lay dead could have displayed His power through resurrection? Absolutely. ...So, the act of raising Jesus from the dead was not the operation merely of one person within the Trinity but was a cooperative act done by the power of the divine substance. The fact that the Bible teaches that God raised Jesus from the dead and that Jesus raise Himself is yet another testament to Christ's divinity." —CARM, Questions About Jesus: Did Jesus raise Himself from the grave or did God do it?
  • "...the Trinity makes the death of Christ impossible, as Professor Prescott seems to teach, ....As stated in the letter from Elder Anderson, we have the logical bold denial of the death of Christ, the very foundation of the Gospel—"the son of God did not die," only the son of man, only a human atonement. This is the only logical position any man can take who believes the heathen Roman doctrine of the Trinity....The Christ of Professor Prescott was not dead but alive from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning. If this is so, then our debt has not been paid, and we are all lost....Nothing is clearer in the scripture than the truth that the Son of God died for us and we have a divine and not simply a human atonement. Those who believe that the Son of God did not die quote an unpublished statement of Sister White. 'Deity did not sink and die, that would have been impossible.' This is all very clear if we believe the Bible statement of death as found in Job 34:12, 14-15...Read this clear statement from the Spirit of Prophecy, Volume 3, page 203: 'When he closed his eyes in death upon the cross, the soul of Jesus did not go at once to Heaven ... all that comprised the life and intelligence of Jesus remained with his body in the sepulchre. And when He came forth it was a whole being. He did not have to summon His spirit from heaven.'" —J.S. Washburn, Letter dated April 25, 1940 from Judson S. Washburn to Elder Prescott.

God could have saved Jesus from death (Hebrews 5:7). If God could have saved him from death, then when he died, he truly died. The explanation of "divinity could not die" is that Jesus as the divine Son of God could not die. The Son of God had to become a man in order to have the possibility of dying. The Son of God became a new being, a blended God-man, Jesus. As Jesus, this blended being could die because he was human. Jesus died as a human but his divine nature remained dormant or non-operational as the Son of Man. Jesus' divine nature was effectively asleep in the tomb. And would remain asleep in the tomb until the Father called Him back to life. The Father raised Jesus from the dead because Jesus had no reason to remain dead. Jesus was spotless and had no reason to remain dead. Jesus was called back to life by the Father and Jesus rose by the life that was in him, the life that the Father had given him.

4. Resurrection (start time 50:00 in below video). Rose from the dead to give us life. We are not saved by the death of Christ, we are saved by the life of Christ. What gives us eternal life is Christ's life. The purpose of the resurrection is that Christ can live in you.

  • Romans 5:10: For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
  • DA 786.4: To the believer, Christ is the resurrection and the life. In our Saviour the life that was lost through sin is restored; for He has life in Himself to quicken whom He will. He is invested with the right to give immortality. The life that He laid down in humanity, He takes up again, and gives to humanity. “I am come,” He said, “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” “Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 10:10; 4:14; John 6:54.
  • Colossians 1:26-27: Christ in you...
  • Galatians 2:20: Christ lives in me...
  • Ephesians 3:17: That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith
  • 2 Corinthians 13:5: ...that Jesus Christ is in you...
  • Romans 8:10: If Christ is in you...

Concluding thoughts. Thus, when the Bible says:

  • One God, it means three Gods in one.
  • Father, it does not mean Father, it's a metaphor.
  • Son, it does not mean Son, it's a metaphor.
  • Spirit, it does not mean Spirit, it's a metaphor.
  • Son of God, should be God the Son.
  • Spirit of God, should be God the Spirit.
  • Jesus was tempted in all points, means he really was not tempted because God cannot be tempted with evil
  • Jesus dies, does not mean Jesus died because God cannot die
  • Christ in you really means He is not in you because it is the Spirit (3rd Person) who is in you.

The Trinity doctrine turns everything related to God as a metaphor. Nothing is what the Bible says it is.

References