One God & One Lord

I never thought I’d be having them, but I am. Ecumenical thoughts. I’m not talking about a universal ecumenism among religions of the world, to include Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, and Muslims. No, I’m talking about only within the realm of Christianity: those groups who believe in God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Those who proclaim Christ as Lord and the only way of eternal salvation.

I participate in online Christian discussion forums and it is truly sad to experience groups of people, all who call on the name of the Lord, accuse one another of the most vile blasphemies, declaring them not to be Christians or not to be saved, or that they belong to a “cult,” with disgust oozing from every letter of the word, even though both sides serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Each group, whether they be Catholic, Protestant, Reformed, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Seventh Day Adventist, Pentecostal, Church of Christ, Christadelphian, Lutheran, Baptist, Biblical Unitarian, or even your generic “nondenominational Christian fellowship,” they all believe that they are the true church, the group that has the majority of the truth, the remnant church, the group most certainly headed for heaven. All the others are viewed as apostate or lost or pagan, but with the right teaching can be brought into the fold. And they all think the same thing about each other. It’s a jungle out there, folks.

Why all this diversity of belief? Part of it can be blamed on the accepting as scripture the writings of men and women who came well after the apostles and disciples of Christ, sometimes claiming to be prophets themselves, sometimes not. Even those who never made a claim to being a prophet or inspired of God, their writings have been elevated to that status by those who came after. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have their Watchtower Society, the Mormons have their Joseph Smith, the Seventh Day Adventists have their Ellen G. White, the Presbyterians and other Reformed groups have their John Calvin, the Catholics have their Pope. All of those groups also accept the canon of Scripture, the 66 books of the Bible, as the inspired Word of God. An amazing giant leap toward unity would be seen simply by forsaking ALL non-biblical sources of guidance. Phrases like “but according to Calvin’s Institutes…..” or “it says in the Desire of Ages that…” or “the Vatican council declared…” or “the prophet Lehi said…” or “according to the Nicene Creed….” Away with all extra-biblical pronouncements! If it is not in the Bible, you have no business enforcing it as a necessary doctrine for all believers or quoting these people as spiritual authorities.

Get back to the Bible and stay there. Yes, there will still be differences of interpretation, but at least everyone will have an agreed upon source of truth for productive discussion. And if we don’t see eye-to-eye on some things, we can still love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, because when everything else is put aside, we recognize that we are all desiring to please God by serving His Son Jesus Christ.

But some will say, “but their conception of Christ is different than ours!” That may be so, and all cannot be right. If their conception is derived from the Scriptures alone, their intent is noble even if their conclusion is faulty.

• Mark 9:38-41
  38 John said to Him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us.”
  39 But Jesus said, “Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me.
  40 “For he who is not against us is for us.
  41 “For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward.
• Romans 14:17-19
  17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
  18 For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.
  19 So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another.

Let’s look here not at what the kingdom of God is NOT, but at what it IS: Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. He who serves Christ in that way is acceptable to God.

Is Christ formed in you? (Galatians 4:19) Or do you bite and devour one another?

• Galatians 5:13-16
  13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
  14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”
  15 But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.
  16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

The brethren who constantly bicker and make accusations back and forth because they don’t believe the same things about baptism or communion or hell or spiritual gifts or end time prophecy, I think they have turned their freedom into an opportunity for the flesh. It is the desire of your flesh that wants to war and bite and devour. You are using the Word of God as bait for your flesh. However, in the Spirit, love should be manifest always. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24).

With the variety of beliefs out there, just those based solely on the Bible, I believe we are all pretty much on our own about searching the scriptures and coming to a knowledge of the truth. We can share what we’ve learned with one another. Some may be persuaded, some may not. But why do we judge one another over such matters? I’m not talking about sin, because we are to correct one another regarding sin. But regarding our understanding, to our own Master we will stand or fall. As my friend Paul Kelly says,

At the end of the day God knows who’s right and who’s wrong. We don’t. All we know is that we act and believe on what we read and what we’re told….and we try to make sense of that to the best of our abilities. Whether we’re right or wrong, apart from God, who can say? We just try to do what’s right in the best way we can.

Faith working through love, serving Jesus Christ, living in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit: this is the kingdom of God. Instead of bickering, biting, and devouring one another, let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24).

The following is a guest article written by Sam Coulter.

It is a personal observation, and one that is amazing in reality, that I have yet to see even one passage of scripture where the doctrine of the Trinity is the subject and focus of either the speaker or the writer in God’s word. There is no passage that articulates the idea that God is three persons or that Jesus is one of those three persons who is “incarnate” as the man Jesus of Nazareth. There is not one passage that says anything explicitly about the Trinity.

While this is not a ground-breaking revelation, it is to me an amazing fact when one looks at the landscape of mainstream orthodox Christianity past and present. Can we really be such slaves to tradition that literally millions and millions have lived fully convinced that the Bible explicitly tells us God is “three persons”? The more I study, the more amazed I am by this apparent phenomenon.

There would not even be any discussion, nor rational disagreement, if we had even ONE passage of scripture where we would find the writer or speaker actually speaking of God as three persons. For instance, where is the passage in which we find such thoughts as “Well here is how God is three persons..” or “Now the Trinity is comprised of…” or “The Godhead includes the Father, Son and Holy Spirit…” or any such clear and explicit verbiage actually addressing this orthodox doctrine?

Instead, we have Trinitarian apologists who skillfully argue for their extremely detailed construct by reading into the text what is clearly not the subject of the passage. And so they must, for it is simply not found anywhere in God’s word. They must resort to obfuscation, equivocation, and outright intellectual dishonesty to even attempt to hold their view.

So I say where is this teaching? Where and what passage may I turn to that will instruct me, without sophistry, of this God who is three co-equal and eternal “persons” yet one being and one God alone? What sermon may I find in the Bible? What doctrinal teaching can I plainly read that will tell me of the dual-natured “Godman” who is both God and “not God” at the same time? Where is the voice of scripture, without manipulation, that speaks of this God? I have yet to find such a voice, except from the Trinitarian apologist.

No doubt you are all wondering “what is the point, Sam?” Well I will tell you. The point is there is not one passage of God’s word, his perfect word, that tells us he is three in one. Not one. That fact is simply not in dispute. The Trinitarian apologist knows this and is reduced to arguing that the “concept” is found in scripture. By this he means that he can skillfully read into the text his doctrine and declare then that it exists “in concept.” I am simply amazed at this and when I am having a discussion with a Trinitarian they will argue as if I am the complete fool for not “clearly” seeing their doctrine (as they do) and they behave just as if we could open the Bible and go right to literally hundreds of passages that read…”God is three persons who are all co-equal…….etc. etc.”.

Well, enough! No more will I accept the force of argument that this is the clear and explicit teaching in God’s word when it is clearly man’s tradition that keeps the doctrine of the Trinity alive. It has been fun playing your word games and sleight of hand half-truths, but no longer will I accept this falsehood. You had better start owning up to the fact that your doctrine is derived, developed, assembled, made up and completely foreign to any voice in God’s word. Forget “proof-texts” taken out of context. Show me a passage where the context and subject is the Trinity. I challenge you to find ONE, just ONE. And when you fail to produce such a passage, and you will fail, then I call on you by the grace of the living God to think about the implications of this fact. If there is no voice or passage of scripture telling you God is a Trinity of persons, then why dear brother or sister, do you believe it?

Peace.

Sam Coulter