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Did Yahushua and the Apostles tell us the whole story?
Why did it take over 300 years for the Church to discover the Way of Salvation?
If we are to believe, as the creeds of the Church state, that one must believe in the Trinity to be saved, on what authority rests this faith? Once, unbelievers in the Trinity were burnt at the stake. This is thankfully not acceptable today, but questioners are instead subtly threatened by the words of highly acclaimed scholars. For example, Millard J. Erickson quotes of the Trinity: “Try to explain it and you will lose your mind; but try to deny it and you’ll lose your soul.”1 What an awful prospect!
This is pretty heavy stuff and I cannot help but feel that if it is true, then Yahushua and the Apostles were very remiss in not making the matter plain to us. Those of Trinitarian persuasion point to a few isolated verses, some even of doubtful provenance, in which at best one must imagine an inference to a doctrine they can’t explain. Check 1 John 5:7-8 in the KJV and other modern translations and you will find verse 7 changed or missing. The KJV wording is known not to be the work of John but a much later Trinitarian scribe. It was an added forgery to promote the Trinity. Similar additions or translation liberties and “spin” appear in many Bibles and always favoring Trinitarianism. Sounds suspicious?
Yahushua said, “This is eternal life, that they might know You, the only true Yahuwah, and Yahushua Christ, whom You have sent" (John 17:3). John said, “Whoever believes in him [Yahushua] will not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Paul pointed the way of Salvation in Romans 10:9: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Yahushua, and believe in your heart that Yahuwah has resurrected him from the dead, you will be saved” — and many similar statements. How many evangelistic appeals have been made based on these and similar Scriptures, not once suggesting that Yahushua is Yahuwah? Yet, on joining the church, it becomes necessary to accept the Trinitarian dogma. The doctrine is a theory fought over and declared by the winners at church councils, over a long period of time and of questionable authority. Yahushua goes out of his way to make plain that our God is his God. He said to Mary after his resurrection, “I ascend to my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God” (John 20:17). Paul, speaking of the final work of reconciliation in 1 Corinthians 15:28, said: “When all things have been subjected to him, then the Son also himself will be subject to Him who put all things under him, so that Yahuwah may be all in all.”
Now, Yahushua did say that he had more to teach the Church in John 16:12-13: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth...and he will show you things to come.” And this further revelation was given after Pentecost when we read in Acts 1:2: “Until the day in which Yahushua was taken up, after he had given commandments through the holy spirit to the Apostles whom he had chosen.” None of the apostolic writings say anything about the Trinity. Do we believe that it was not until another 300 years had passed, that at a council of mainly Greek bishops, presided over by a pagan sun-worshipping emperor, that Yahuwah chose to reveal “the cornerstone of the Christian faith” as we are told the doctrine of the Trinity is today? Then, even later, the Athanasian Creed declares: “He therefore who wants to be saved must thus think of the Trinity...Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly in the Incarnation of our Lord Yahushua Christ [i.e. the Incarnation of a Second Person of a triune Godhead, the eternal Son of God, who had no beginning in time].”
Professor Loofs of Germany, a pupil of Harnack, one of the “princes” of church history, lectured in 1922 at Oberlin College in Ohio and remarked that none of his colleagues in Germany believed that the traditional Christology of Nicea (325) and Chalcedon (451) was biblically valid. It was this same Loofs who spoke of polytheism having entered the Church, camouflaged, in the second century. Yes, a corrupting polytheism crept in under a mask. The need to provide a second “God” in the form of a Gnostic “aeon” dealt a blow to the strict monotheism of Yahushua’ own creed. Under the guise of promoting Yahushua, the creeds actually undermined his humanity and at the same time threatened the unique status of the One God, his Father. Yahushua, the Son begotten in Mary (Matt. 1:20), was replaced by an alien visitor from another world.
Every sincere Christian must seek the answers to the questions asked in this article — for there is no mystery in the nature of our Savior, “the man Christ Yahushua.” It is a relief to turn to the simplicity of Scripture to learn who the Son of Yahuwah is in relation to his Father. Read Luke 1:26-35.
1 “What ...[Yahuwah] is Like,” p. 342. Millard J. Erickson (b. 1932) is a Christian theologian, professor of theology, and author. He has written the widely acclaimed systematic work Christian Theology as well as over 20 other books.
2 Romans 16:25-26: “Now to him who has power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Yahushua Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting Yahuwah, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.”
This is a non-WLC article written by Keith Relf.
We have taken out from the original article all pagan names and titles of the Father and Son, and have replaced them with the original given names. Furthermore, we have restored in the Scriptures quoted the names of the Father and Son, as they were originally written by the inspired authors of the Bible. -WLC Team