A Critical Look At The Godhead (Part 1).

 “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim 3:16-17, emp added). Do you know really believe all Scripture is inspired? You must be a mature Christian if you have that view. I didn’t believe that, and I will explain why. I knew the Bible was the Word of God, but I wasn’t impressed with some stories and therefore didn’t take them to heart. My opinion on some issues made me doubt a part of it. I didn’t like the God of the Old Testament because He was impatient. He would massacre thousands of people for little affronts. There were also circumstances that I felt He could have resolved much better. For example, the stoning of people was a big deal for me. Someone will pick sticks on Sabbath, and God will allow them to be stoned to death. I would agree with God on some issues, but I felt I had a better view of some issues than He did. Many Israelites died in the wilderness for “small sins.” If God had only been patient, they would have probably repented. I would judge God in my heart for things that didn’t sit well with me.

There were also times when Muslims would debate with me by quoting “contradictory” verses I had no answers to. I felt “unpleasant” Scriptures were not inspired, but the good ones were. I even thought that if God had known the future properly as we do, He would have been much more careful with His words. Perhaps you might have felt that way in your Christian walk. The problem with this perception is that if God can change some verses, He wouldn’t be perfect and that alone will render almost all His other attributes useless. An imperfect God needs to learn and be better, which means He doesn’t know all things, which means His Word is unreliable. If His Word is erroneous, it opens the doors for many accusations and lies that affect every other aspect of Him.

Of course, I repented in ashes because I was using my tiny peanut brain to correct an infinite God. How ridiculous is that! That is what we call pride. A prideful person is arrogant and disdainful, feeling superior over another and considering other people’s opinions as unworthy. Psalm 32:8 says, “I will instruct you and teach you how you should go; I will guide you with My eye.” God instructs us, not the other way round. “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counsellor has taught Him?” (Isaiah 40:13). Whenever we criticise the Scriptures and think that certain things are not valid or that we know better, we unconsciously counsel God in our hearts. You may not think of it that way, but that is the truth. Whenever you try to argue or disbelieve the Word of God, you are saying you know better than Him.

I spoke to one woman, trying to see if I could share the gospel with her. She condemned the Bible, claiming that it needs many updates. And she cited an example of gay marriages. She claimed that science has proven that some people are born gay. When somebody talks, they may appear bright, but a careful analysis of their words is foolishness before God. She was telling the Creator of the human body that science knows better than Him. 1 Corinthians 8:1 says, “Knowledge causes people to be puffed up (to bear themselves loftily and be proud).” (AMPC). An expert’s opinion is irrelevant to the Scripture except in support of it. God’s Word is forever settled, meaning it is not subject to change. His Word doesn’t age with time and cannot be twisted, improved or revised. What He said 1000 years ago is the same thing He would say 1000 years to come. This is the theological meaning of the phrase “settled in Heaven”. (Psalm 119:89).

Every “problem” we identify in the Scriptures is not the problem; we are. If you read something in the Bible that you don’t understand, it is because you don’t understand. There is nothing wrong with it; it is just that you don’t understand. It requires more studies to understand it better. Therefore, we must constantly study the Bible to get a better understanding of it. The Bible is not black and white, where you can pick a verse and make a doctrine out of it. It is a mixture of colours that blend, so the more knowledge we have of it, the better we will appreciate it.

To go to Heaven, we must know God because you cannot worship a God you don’t know. Millions of people call upon God from dawn to dusk, but if you were to have a conversation with them, you would realise they don’t know what they are doing. There is only one God with a cap G. He is the only one worthy of our worship. God is the generic name representing the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, popularly called the Trinity. If we call upon a God who doesn’t express Himself as the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, we worship a “god.” You either worship a god or God. You cannot claim to worship God when God doesn’t comprise the Father, Son, and the Spirit. You are serving Satan thinking it is God for all you may not know. A God minus the Son and the Spirit is Satan. If I tell religious people to stop serving Satan, they will be furious with me, and even sincere Christians will attack me and lambast me. “Who made you a judge?” “Who do you think you are?” I will rather offend you with the truth than comfort you with a lie. It is easy to be with the crowd than stand alone with the truth.

A lack of knowledge is not a sin, but failing to learn the truth can cause you great harm, to the extent of not making it to Heaven. This is why it is crucial to know the true God. The Bible tells us who God is, so failing to learn about Him is to our destruction. I am passionate about this and want as many people to know God properly because I was a Christian who didn’t believe in the Trinity. Do you know that technically made me an unbeliever? I loved God with my heart, but I was not sure about Jesus being God. I felt God created him to be His unique son that God sent to come and die for us. I loved Him for dying to save me, but He was God’s messenger to me. I felt He was inferior to God, and that was my stand. Even though I sang songs regarding the Trinity, I didn’t believe in my heart that Jesus was God.

I was reading the Bible one day and came across this verse, “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.” (John 8:58-59). I was thinking of this verse and was wondering why they stoned Him. I felt there was some misunderstanding somewhere, that Jesus didn’t mean to say He was God. As I dug deeper into the Scriptures, I was amazed, and for the first time, it appeared as though scales were removed from my eyes. I consider that day as the day I was truly saved.

Your view of Jesus is what will endure for eternity. Some say He was a good teacher, prophet, philanthropist, and healer but fail to see Him as God. Romans 10:9-10 teaches us how to be saved. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved: for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.” (ASV). What does it mean Jesus is Lord? Three “Lords” are used in the Bible, especially the NKJV. We have “LORD”, “Lord” and “lord”. Lord means someone who is in authority over another. If someone is your lord, they are your master in charge over you. The lord with a small “l” is generally used for a human relationship even as Sarah called Abraham lord. (1 Pet 3:6). “Lord” with a cap L or “LORD” in all caps is about the deity of God. Therefore, when we say Jesus is Lord, we mean He is God! For example, we read in Acts 10:36, “The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ—He is Lord of all.” There is no way to explain this verse away. Nobody can be the Lord of all when he isn’t God.

The Amplified Bible has made the Bible easier to understand, and this is how it puts Romans 10:9-10. “Because if you acknowledge and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord [recognising His power, authority, and majesty as God], and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, a person believes [in Christ as Saviour] resulting in his justification [that is, being made righteous—being freed of the guilt of sin and made acceptable to God]; and with the mouth he acknowledges and confesses [his faith openly], resulting in and confirming [his] salvation.” All that Romans 10:9-10 is saying is that for one to be saved, one must admit that Jesus is God.

Can you see that the Bible never mentions good works, charity and ablution or praying five times a day? It didn’t say tithes, offerings, fasting etc. I do not condemn these things because we must do good works (Eph 2:10). However, we can only get to Heaven by accepting that Jesus is God (Lord). God also inspired this portion of the Scriptures! At least half of the world’s population does not believe in the deity of Christ. They claim that you will surely make it to Heaven if you are good enough, but that is not what the Bible says. According to the Scriptures, you must believe that Jesus is God to be saved. Yes, I preach about Lordship salvation.

“Ignorantia juris non excusat” is a Latin legal principle that states that “ignorance of the law excuses no one.” My deepest unrealistic desire is for God to reveal Himself to the lost so they can know Him but that conflicts with faith which teaches us to believe in what we cannot see. God can not allow anyone to Heaven because they were ignorant of His Word. He will judge everyone with the Bible. The god all other faiths call unto may have similar characteristics as the one God Christian serve, but they deny the deity of Christ, so they are not the same. The Christian God is unique from all other gods, and there is no comparison.

The word “Trinity” is not mentioned in the Bible, but it is a word used to represent the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit as consubstantial Being. Even though it is not directly mentioned, the concept is fundamental. Disregarding it doesn’t change the fact that God consists of three beings. You cannot tell God on Judgment Day, “I didn’t see the word Trinity in the Bible, and that was why I chose not to believe it.” The word “bisexual” isn’t in the Bible either. Do we practice it because the Bible didn’t say, “Thou shall not be bisexual?” Leviticus 18:22 says, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.” “Rapture” is not directly mentioned in the Bible, but the phrase, “caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air”, is mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. If it sounds scary, you can avoid using that word, but Christians will be “caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air”. I will be using “Trinity”, “Triune”, “Godhead”, or “Tri-Unity” to refer to the concept of God existing as one in three.

 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen 1:1). The word “God” used here is “Elohim”, which is the plural form of the word el. El refers to God, but Elohim is plural. The same word is used to refer to heathen deities. Right from the start of the Bible, God was trying to tell us something about Himself. Genesis 1:1 tells us that a plural God created us. Verse 26 reads, “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” The word “Us” is a plural pronoun. “Our” is a determiner that means belonging to or associated with the speaker and one or more other people previously mentioned. God said, “Let Us make man and woman in Our image. The woman is part of man because, in the preceding verse, it is saying, “let them” have dominion. Men and women are one; even though we are distinct and diverse, we are one. This image of God is not in the physical sense but the spiritual. The preceding verse says, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Emp added). Can you observe something here? The pronoun switched from plural to singular. Initially, God planned to create man in Their image but created man in His image. Do you see what I see? God is more than one Person but not many. You can pick your Bible and see check it out.

 Sceptics claim Christian worship three Gods, but that will be Tritheism. If it is three Gods we worship, the pronoun should have always been plural, but that isn’t true.  “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!” (Deut 6:4). As we go along, this doctrine gets a bit complicated, but the fact that we do not understand it all doesn’t mean the Bible never teaches it. There are many diseases that science doesn’t know their cause, but that doesn’t mean they do not exist because man doesn’t have the cure. Cancer, dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, advanced lung, kidney, heart, liver disease, stroke, Huntington’s disease, and many others cannot be cured because science doesn’t know the answer. Yet, they take millions of lives every year. Do we turn a blind eye to them and say they aren’t real because we don’t have the cure? It is ok to believe something you don’t understand.

To understand God, we must understand man. Man consists of three components: Spirit, Soul and Body. These verses teach us that you are more than your human body. I have separate teaching on Spirit, Soul, and Body, so I won’t go into details here. For human beings to function, they need a soul. A body without a soul is dead. We also have a spirit in us. The truth is, we are spiritual beings who have a soul and live in a body. This makes us tripartite beings. You are more than your body. Our body makes us able to interact with the physical world. Our soul is who we are. It consists of the mind, emotions, and will. Our spirit is the one that interacts with God. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.” Anyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus isn’t a new creature, his spirit isn’t alive, so in a way, they are like animals. Animals have a soul but not a spirit, so they cannot fellowship with God. If we cannot understand these fundamental teachings of body, soul and spirit, we cannot God.

You are one-in-three. When we are born into the world, we come with our soul and body with a dead spirit. We can live as normal human beings like everyone else, but one-third of us is dead. Without a born-again spirit, you cannot be a complete being as intended by God. Yes, you can have a promising career, marry, have kids, have properties and all that you desire but still be incomplete.  

Bible Verse That Proves That We Are More Than One Being.

1. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctifyyou completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body is preserved blameless at our Lord Jesus Christ’s coming. (1 Thess 5:23).
2. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But ratherfear Him who can destroy both soul and body in (Matt 10:28).
3. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. (Eccl 12:7).
4. For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Heb 4:12).
5. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living soul. (Gen 2:7; KJV).
6. The body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead. (Jas 2:26).
7. And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour. (Luke 1:46-47).
8. Whatprofit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Orwhat will a man give in exchange for his soul? (Matt 16:26).
9. And so it was, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-Oni, but his father called him Benjamin. (Gen 35:18).
10. Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. (3 Jn 1:2).
11. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor 2:14).
12. That which is born of the flesh isflesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:6).
13. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. (1 Cor 6:17).
14. “Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins shall die.” (Eze 18:4).

It is not complicated to understand that man is a tripartite being; God is the same. The only difference is that God is fully God even if “one” part of Him is “missing”. A man without a soul or spirit is incomplete, but God is perfect without a “missing part.” In other words, the Father is not one-third of God, nor the Son and the Spirit. Each is God. Am I saying there are three Gods? Not precisely. As we continue to study, you will understand the concept better.

The Father is God.

1. Galatians 1:1 says, “Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead). [Emp added].
2. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore, the world does not know us because it did not know Him. (1 John 3:1; emp added).
3. My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His correction; for whom the Lord loves He corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights. (Pro 3:11-1).
4. But you, when you pray,go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward youopenly. (Matt 6:6).
5. Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? (Matt 6:26).
6. Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me;for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. (Jon 17:24).
7. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.My Father,who has given them to Me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand.I and My Father are one.” (John 10:28-30).
8. Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Phil 4:20).
9. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1 John 2:15).

The Son is God

1. Jesus claimed to be God. “I and My Father are one.” (John 10:30). Notice that “My” is italicised, meaning it was not part of the original translation. Jesus said, “I am the Father are one”.
2. His followers claimed He was God. “And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28; emp added). Remember that Lord means God?
3. Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ (Ti 2:13; emp added).
4. Therefore, take heed to yourselves and all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” (Acts 20:28). Jesus was the one who died on the cross. Yet, it says God purchased the church with His own blood.
5. But to the Son, He says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Your kingdom.
6. Then those who were in the boat came and worshipped Him, saying, “Truly You are the Son of God.” (Matt 14:33). These verses show that Jesus was glorified even as God alone is worthy of worship (Matt 2:11; Matt 28:9, 17; Luke 24:52; John 9:38).
7. Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained likeprecious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (2 Pet 1:1; emp added).“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 ” (Rev 1:8).
8. And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Rev 19:10; emp added).

The Spirit is God.

1. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Gen 1:2).
2. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. (Ps 33:6).
3. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (1 Cor 6:19).
4. Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to youunless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. (John 3:5).
5. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” (Acts 5:3-4; emp added).
6. “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you.ButtheHelper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father willsend in My name,He will teach you all things and bring to yourremembrance all things that I said to you. (John 14:25-26).
7. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. (Eph 4:30).
8. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. (1 Cor 2:10; emp added).
9. “But when theHelper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. And you also will bear witness because you have been with Me from the beginning. (John 15:26-27; emp added).
10. Nevertheless, I will tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; butif I depart, I will send Him to you.And when He hascome, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:of sin, because they do not believe in Me;of righteousness,because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;of judgment becausethe ruler of this world is judged. “I still have many things to say to you,but you cannot bear them now.However, when He,the Spirit of truth, has come,He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. (John 16:7-15).