Oneness Misuse of Scripture: John 14:9

Oneness like to quote John 14:9: "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father." They claim that this is literal, that looking at Jesus with the eyes is seeing the Father with the eyes. However, Jesus also says (John 5:37): "The Father who sent Me has Himself borne witness about Me. His voice you have never heard, His form you have never seen."

Jesus spoke, yet no one has heard the Father's voice. Jesus had a visible physical form, yet no one has seen the Father's form. Therefore, Jesus cannot be the Father. and the literalist Oneness use of John 14:9 is the insertion of a presupposed manmade doctrine.

Total Depravity: Can the Leopard Change His Spots?

I expect unbelievers to deny that they are sinners. That is the nature of unbelief. If they understood sin, then they would understand the holiness of God and their need for a Savior. However, I am always bewildered by Christians, claiming to believe in the Bible, who deny the wickedness of men. Not that they phrase it that way, of course, but rather that they deny the logical consequences of that wickedness.

Paul tells us that the unregenerate are "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). Yet, such Christians unconsciously change that to "sick in trespasses and sins." And, as a sick person can act to make himself well, they believe that the natural man has the ability to treat his own spiritual condition.

Nicodemus

However, Scripture deals with that belief in other places, too. For example, we read, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil" (Jeremiah 13:23). The Prophet asks a rhetorical question, Can a man change his skin color? Or can a leopard wish away his spots? And the implied answer to both questions is "no." In the same way, he says, the wicked cannot choose to change to good. Jesus makes the same point: "What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person" (Matthew 15:18-20).

How, then, can anyone be changed? Are we doomed to the natural condition in which we were born? The Bible answers those questions, too: "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules" (Ezekiel 35:26-27).

The answer is not to gloss over the sin of man. Rather, we depend on the divine Cardiologist to perform radical surgery, removing our dead spiritual hearts, to replace them with new living hearts, rendered thereby able to love God and to obey Him. This is what Jesus calls being born again (John 3:3-8). It is the new birth which changes dead sinners to living saints.

Jesus, Fully God, and Equal with the Father

John gives us an interesting bit of information in His Gospel: "This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God" (John 5:18).

In dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses, I have often been told that Jesus never claimed to be God. Yet, John tells us here that His First-Century audience took His words to be claiming that very thing. The Witnesses claim that, two-thousand years later, they alone understand what Jesus said, while His immediate audience was confused.

This verse also addresses the claims of Oneness Pentecostals. They claim that Jesus was the Father before His incarnation. This verse refutes their claim in two ways. First, He is speaking of His Father, not as the Father. Again, we see the heretics claiming to have a better understanding of His words than His contemporary audience did. Second, He is described as equal with the Father. Oneness deny the deity of the Son, claiming that "son" refers only to His flesh. If that were correct, then John would have been saying that His flesh is equal to the Father, which is nonsensical. Rather, it can only be a reference to the Son, proving the full deity of God the Son, equal to God the Father.

Both groups simply blank out that Jesus never disputes this interpretation. He could have avoided His torture and execution simply by telling the Jews that they had misunderstood Him. Yet, He didn't.

My call to both Jehovah's Witnesses and Oneness is to repudiate their irrational suppositions. Or, it would also be honest for them to claim that Jesus was a deceiver. What is not logically possible is their present equivocation. The fact that two such diametrically-opposed groups conflict this one verse should give them pause. Only the orthodox trinitarian view is consistent with it.

The False Fantasy of Moral Autonomy

There is a time in the Bible, where the Scripture repeats this mantra: "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6, 21:25). The Bible says that is a bad thing, an indication of moral anarchy. However, in our own day it has become a fashionable lifestyle: "Do your own thing. Just follow your heart."

However, underlying that concept is an assumption of autonomy, the assertion that man rules himself and his destiny, and need not acknowledge any standard of judgment over his life other than his own pleasure. Even Christians fail to connect that mentality to the words of Satan in the Garden (Genesis 3:5): "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." In this case, "knowing" means "deciding." Our popular hedonism has come full circle, to demonstrate its satanic origin, yet that doesn't check the promotion of it.

However, God is neither impressed with our moral sophistication nor our alliance with Satan. "You have wearied the LORD with your words. But you say, 'How have we wearied Him?' By saying, 'Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them.' Or by asking, 'Where is the God of justice?'" (Malachi 2:17). He finds it tedious to listen to us declare our autonomy and right to decide our own morality. After all, He is God, our creator, and we are merely His creatures. Therefore, such a claim of autonomy is an act of rebellion and treason, the exact sin for which Adam was judged, and he and eve were cast out of the garden.

"Free Will," a False Response to the Question of Evil

Atheists will attack the Christian notion of God by pointing out that there is evil in the world. Since that is certainly an undeniable fact, some Christians will use the defense of free will. That is, they claim that God gives men autonomy to do good or to do evil. Men choose to do evil, so there is evil in the world, regardless of the desire of God.

In this case, the harm done to Christian theism by these "defenders" is worse than the attack against which they argue. They claim that God doesn't want evil in the world, but He is just unable to do anything about it, because man is sovereign.

That is false. It is a false view of God, and it is a false view of man.

Let's start with the truth about God. As the atheist grants (showing that his professed atheism is really just a cover for the hatred he has toward God), God is in control. And that includes the control of evil. For example, we read in Zechariah 8:10, "Before those days there was no wage for man or any wage for beast, neither was there any safety from the foe for him who went out or came in, for I set every man against his neighbor." That is an unequivocal statement that the evil of men toward other men is the result of God's purposes, a judgment for rebellion, as Calvin commented on this verse: "As then in God's judgments there ever shines forth the highest equity, there is no reason for men to try to implicate Him in their own perdition, or to devolve on Him a part of the blame. God then justly excites the hearts of men into madness, and yet men themselves bear the whole blame, though God draws them here and there against their wills, and makes use of them as His instruments; for the hidden purpose of God does not excuse them, while nothing is less their object than to obey His word, though they are guided by His hidden operation." It was in understanding this that Job was moved to say to his wife, "Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" (Job 2:10). This illustrates the assertion of Scripture, contrary to this supposed defense by ill-informed Christians, that God does everything as He desires to do: "Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps" (Psalm 135:6).

And that leads me to addressing the false view of man expressed above. Man is not sovereign. He does not have a veto on the intentions of God, whether or not it is claimed to be by God's permission. "All the inhabitants of earth are accounted as nothing, and He does according to His will among the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand or say to Him, 'What have you done?'" (Daniel 4:35). Rather, God always acts according to His own glory: "For My own sake, for My own sake, I do it, for how should My name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another" (Isaiah 48:11).

Roman Worship of Saints, a Remnant of Roman Paganism

The worship of saints is a well-known characteristic of Roman Catholicism. Yeah, they quibble about calling it "worship," but their argument is unconvincing. However, when they say that it is an ancient practice, they are completely correct.

Most Americans are exposed to Roman mythology at some point during our educations. We know about Jupiter and Juno, Neptune, Pluto, etc. What most Americans don't know, however, is that the big-name gods were not the focus of the devotion of the common people. They were reserved for important people, such as emperors and senators. In their homes, Romans worshiped minor deities called Lares. "Lares were the spirits of one's dead ancestors and there was a cupboard in the home which housed their statuettes and from which they worked to make sure the family prospered. Daily prayers and offerings were made to the Lares throughout the year but elaborate rituals were enacted on special days such as a birthday, wedding, anniversary or departure or return from a journey. When a family moved permanently from one house to another, the Lares and the Panes would move with them." These family spirits had the time and devotion to give to each household when the gods were too busy with things like wars and coronations.

Does this sound familiar?

The Church of Rome promotes praying to saints, often in home shrines, not as mediators to God, she says, but as mediators to the Mediator, Jesus Christ. Why not pray directly to Him? *Shrug* Is He too busy? We need to speak to His secretary? Is it really not matter of trust? I feel no need to pray to saints, because I am confident that Jesus is glad to receive my prayers: "This is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us" (I John 5:14).

But I digress.

My point here is simply this: As much as Rome talks about the Bible in the explanation linked above, the real basis of saint worship is the hold-over of a custom from pagan Rome.

Who Are the Children of God? Satan's Attack on the Plan of Salvation

This issue comes up in discussions with two groups of people: Mormons, who claim that every person is the child of God by creation; and liberals, who hold to a universal salvation, claiming that the fatherhood of God goes with the brotherhood of man. While the two groups are different in many ways, they share this humanistic view of the goodness of man in the eyes of God.

However, Scripture is God-centered, not man-centered, and, therefore, makes determinations on the basis of His perspective, not ours. And what is that perspective?

"It is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring" (Romans 9:8). God, in His word, always makes a distinction among men. We see it first in Genesis 3:15: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." Immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve to sin, God announces His plan for salvation, which shall distinguish between the seed of Eve and the seed of the serpent (see also John 8:44). And what Moses describes in poetic terms, Paul describe prosaically.

The efforts of Mormons and liberals to take down the dividing wall between the godly and the wicked is very popular in today's spiritual environment. However, it is an effort to erase a division which God has determined. That puts their effort in opposition to the salvation plan of God. In essence, they seek to undermine God's plan of salvation, the same purpose as the serpent on Genesis 2.

The Catholic Apologetic for Scripture

While professing to believe in the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, the Church of Rome claims that acceptance of that authority is dependent on the testimony of the Church. That is, her church. They enjoy quoting the words of Augustine: "I would not believe in the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me." Of course, they hide the fact that "catholic" is merely the Greek word for "universal.' It is circular reasoning to equate Augustine's use of the word with the Roman organization.

However, let us consider the logic of Rome's assertions. By doing so, I think we will conclude not only that her assertion is false, but that it is also destructive to real biblical faith.

First, it makes the basis of authority to be an organization, lodged in the hierarchy of Rome. They explicitly state this. They claim that the Bible even teaches this: "The church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth" (I Timothy 3:15). This is both begging the question, equating "church" in this verse with Rome's organization, and cherry-picking, ignoring another applicable verse: "[The Church is] built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone" (Ephesians 2:20). Not only does the Scripture not make the Roman hierarchy the foundation of Scripture, but it, instead, makes the writings of the Apostles (the New Testament) and the prophets (the Old Testament) the foundation of the Church, the twofold witness of Christ, the real head of the Church, exactly the opposite of the claims of Rome.

Second, the implication of Rome's doctrine is that God can preserve the testimony of the church, but not of His own word. What does that say about the power of God? It is also contrary to the explicit statement of Scripture: "You have exalted above all things Your name and Your word" (Psalm 138:2). God prizes His name first, and His word second, over anything else.

And third, we have the testimony of the creation to her Creator: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world" (Psalm 19:1-4). If even nature gives a testimony to God, such that it leaves no man with excuse (Romans 1:18ff), how much more must that be the case in His word!

The Words of Jesus versus Oneness Theology

Oneness Pentecostals teach that Jesus was the Father before His incarnation. They explicitly deny the preexistence of the Son. However, they hold their doctrine by resolutely shutting their minds to the communications between Jesus and the father.

For example, during the crucifixion, we see these words of Jesus: "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit" (Luke 23:46). Oneness teachers claim that this is the Son (which they define as the flesh nature of Jesus only), addressing the Father, that is, His own deity. They suppose, in other words, that this is the verbalization of the internal conversation between the human and divine natures of Christ.

But is that a logical conclusion from the grammar of the sentence? No, it's not.

First, would a rational person address Himself in the second person, "You," and claim that he is doing something to himself? No, he wouldn't. Second, if a person is speaking to himself, does he speak verbally, with the expectation that others would take note of his internal conversation? Again, no, he wouldn't. Third, would the Evangelist record those words as a conversation, be unaware that it was just Jesus speaking to Himself? Surely not! Yet, Luke records the words in the same way he does any other conversation between two people. Oneness believers assume that they are clever enough to figure out such a fundamental truth, even though Luke gives no hint of it in the text (or anywhere else, or by any other writer).

On the other hand, if we read Luke as natural language, written by a rational person about another rational person, and intended for an audience of rational persons, the grammar of the sentence points naturally to one person's speaking to a second, distinct person. That is, taking the text as natural language, rather than as a mysterious code for an exalted audience (a thoroughly-Gnostic concept), we can never come to the conclusion that Oneness teachers do. That can only indicate that their interpretation has a source other than the text.