He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
1 John 2:22
A recent credible survey has shown that the Christian Trinitarian doctrine has fallen out of favor for a majority of Christians in America. Only 24% among “born again” Christians profess faith in this creedal tradition. Considering the text from the Johannine Epistle cited above, it is a sobering development. Are we justified in inferring that most “born again” Christians are “antichrists”?
Of course, the survey was received with glee by the many heretics which oppose the doctrine. The survey came to my attention by one such anti-Trinitarian, who thinks that the doctrine itself is a heresy.
Douglas Del Tondo, author of Jesus Words Only (2007), thinks that Jesus never claimed to be God, but only the “Son of God” in some symbolic sense, not as one in essence.
I have argued the point in other Peshers and Posts, to show that it is impossible for a “son” to be less in essence than a “father,” because the notion of fatherhood, begetting, and sonship is one of a succession of kind. This is what we see in nature and is clearly what was meant to be communicated when these familial titles were appropriated by Christ to describe the nature of the Deity.
It so happens that the Christian world is celebrating the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Council (325 AD). Anti-Trinitarians frequently complain about the language of its creed – the Nicene Creed -and its affirmation of the deity of Christ and the distinction of His personhood from that of “God the Father.” The Greek word – homoousios (of the same substance) – was insisted upon, while the word heteroousios (of like substance) promoted by the Arian faction was rejected by the Council.
It is true that these words are not found in the Greek New Testament and detractors of the Creed make much of that omission, as if somehow to imply that the Creed is unscriptural and merely the work of man.
Yet, what is often overlooked, if not generally unknown, is that homoousios has an equivalent in the Hebrew Old Testament in the word for “kind” and becomes the foundation for why we say that Christ was also of “godkind,” and equal in substance with “the Father.” (More on this in a future Pesher).
I have no sympathy for anti-Trinitarians who, in my opinion, demonstrate bad faith and deceptive hermeneutics at every turn. Del Tondo, as cited above for example, an attorney and a very capable advocate for his position, nevertheless, must deceive his listeners – as do the Jews – by insisting that the name “God” in the New Testament refers exclusively to an infinite being, even though Christ Himself argued the contrary to his Jewish opponents (John 10:34-35). As we have demonstrated elsewhere, “God” is principally a title for a “sovereign.” And while the great “I AM” as an infinite being is truly sovereign, both men and angels are many times referred to as “gods” throughout the Old and New Testaments. The very first of the Ten Commandments assumes as much: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
If such “gods” do not exist, what purpose, then, does the prohibition serve? One might as well pass a law banning the hunting of unicorns: a ludicrous proposition, considering that unicorns do not exist.
Consequently, when Jesus said in His prayer in John 17:3 that the Father alone was God, He was not saying that to deny His own divinity, but rather to affirm the Father’s exclusive sovereignty. In every respect, Christ was in submission to the will of the Father in Heaven. Yet, He also affirmed that the “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).
This contention of a unity of kind with the Father was clearly understood by Christ’s opponents, who charged Him with blasphemy for it, who, as a mere man, “makest thyself God” (John 10:33). He was crucified for affirming what the antitrinitarians deny.
What of the Holy Spirit? This was settled at Constantinople a generation later, merely restating explicitly what was implicit in the Nicene Creed: that the Holy Spirit is “worshipped and glorified.”
To deny the Third Person of the Trinity by diminishing “His” (or Her) divinity or personhood is perilously close to the unforgiveable blasphemy warned against by Christ of His detractors who ascribed His powers to a source other than the “finger of God” (Matthew 12:31). We are forbidden to confess the works of the Holy Spirit to be that of the Father or of the Son, and certainly not to suppose that it is one of demonic origins. The works of the Holy Spirit are self-caused and not of that kind which represents an impersonal force or cosmic power. The Father is a spirit, and the pre-Incarnate Christ was a spirit, but neither of them are the “Holy Spirit.”
Returning to the survey which shows a repudiation of the Trinitarian Doctrine by those who profess to represent Christ: they do not represent Christ, but rather, are antichrist in their heresy. Those are strong words in an age of “free thinkers.” But much in modern thinking is devious with an agenda that is less than honorable.
The Bible teacher mentioned above has stated many times in his writings and his podcast productions that his goal is to “Judaize” Christianity. While he can be forgiven for his disaffection for what can only be described as a revived Marcion heresy within the Evangelical churches, his extreme polemics serve only to revive the works religion condemned by Christ against the Pharisees.
Antitrinitarianism represents the “apostasy” of our age which sets the stage for the time of Tribulation and the judgment of God against His enemies. The doctrine of the Trinity is not a mere act of philosophical abstraction but has serious societal implications.
It is the foundation of social order.
— JWS, 6/22/25
[Footnote: a full vetting of William Whiston’s and Isaac Newton’s alleged Antitrinitarianism will be addressed in a future Cambrian Pesher. Sufficient for now is to acknowledge that both men were in opposition to Sabellianism and were misunderstood.]
