He Are Three – They is One!

Anthony Buzzard

Trinitarian Confusion About God

The point of discussing Jesus’ teaching about who God is involves our whole relationship to God and truth. It was Jesus who said that “This is the most important commandment of all: Listen Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” What if the public by rather casually accepting the status quo of church tradition, aids and abets the strange idea that God is really THREE? Many have heard of the Athanasian Creed recited for centuries in churches. In that creed, amongst other dogmatic pronouncements assigning you to eternal hellfire if you dare to differ, it says “The Father is Almighty, the Son is Almighty and the Holy Spirit is Almighty, but this is not Three Almighties, but One Almighty.”

Are you impressed? Or horrified? Why did one archbishop even say he wished we could get rid of that creed?! Are God and Jesus pleased when those gathering as congregations utter what is evident nonsense? Are we supposed to break the rules of common sense and grammar and proclaim before God our faith in what makes no sense at all?

At a debate in Phoenix, Arizona, I made the point that one good reason for not believing in the Trinity is that expert Trinitarians admit candidly that to be a true and proper Trinitarian one must be willing to say “HE (GOD) are THREE and THEY is ONE.” (Millard Erickson, God in Three Persons, p. 270). Erickson confesses that “it is simply impossible to explain the Trinity unequivocally” (p. 268). Yet “the system” requires that you believe it, or else!

What if the Bible’s definition of God is actually very simple and entirely unambiguous? Try this: We read in 1 Cor. 9:24 (NLT), “Remember that in a race everyone runs, but only one person (eis) gets the prize. You also must run in such a way that you will win.” Did you understand “one person”? Of course. Now read about God in Gal. 3:20: “God is One Person.” The Greek word is exactly the same as in I Cor. 9:24; eis, one, one Person – not three persons.

Buzzard, Anthony (2010, October). Excerpt from, Focus on the Kingdom Magazine – Vol. 13 No. 1