One... God... What does this mean?

In the interest of truth and being true to God's word, it is always good to practice what God's word tells us regarding beliefs and doctrines...

1 Thess 5:21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

In an effort to do just that, we sometimes have to look into various topics and even have dialog with someone who believes something we don't in an effort to understand WHY they believe what they believe. In this way, we can either learn something new about God's word, or we can better see where someone is erring with the word of God and can help them...

James 5:20 Let him know, that he which converts the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

Hanging on to error serves no one but Satan. In this vein, I recently decided to look into a belief system regarding the nature of God being ONLY one being. Traditional Christian thought views God as a Trinity locked forever as that. It is this author's belief that "God" is NOT now a trinity, but consists of two beings presently, with more such beings to come later on. These two are the Ancient of Days, the head of all, and the one who was the Word of John 1, and who is now Christ the Son of God.

The biggest claim by this group is that Christ was created (or as they state it, pro-created, fathered, generated...) and did not exist prior to His human birth. They are teaching that God is a single being and has always been such. Since this conflicted with the beliefs of ten's of thousands of Christians, it was necessary to begin dialog with several of their teachers. Over several weeks time, I asked questions and presented challenges to their answers. It took quite a bit of emailing back and forth to arrive at a conclusion that I could support biblically, and which they, in my opinion, couldn't adequately or scripturally, answer. I present my main challenges to their premise, with actual answers presented to me, and my answers in return.

I originally presented them with the scriptures that refer to the Pre-Existence of Christ. In response to these questions, I have included the basic answer presented to defend the belief in just one being called "God."

I then presented four essential questions I needed answered before I could begin to entertain this belief. Here are the four questions:

1. HOW can a created being, which could be repeated a million times over, be God's "only" begotten son? Abraham's son Isaac was his ONLY begotten son, (with His wife) and Abraham couldn't possibly have another son to give unless God provided another miracle birth. He had no others to look forward to but He knew that God could resurrect Isaac if Abraham killed him.

   If God "created" Christ, He could do it again. To believe otherwise is foolishness and limiting God. To create just one and call this one His "only" is misleading and not correct except as time views it. He would have been the "only" son at the moment, but this isn't truly His "only" son because He could easily create another. Trying to make a difference between create, and "create out of His own life" misses the very nature of the power of God and what He created the universe out of in the first place... His spirit, or "self." Remember, God is spirit and nothing existed outside this Godhead for God to create the universe out of. To believe God created everything out of nothing makes evolution a valid belief system.

2. Why create humanity as flesh and subject to sin, place them in a hopeless situation that had no hope of success of NOT sinning, then "create" a savior and give HIM all that a human needed to NOT sin, and then allow this savior to die a horrible death to clean up that mess? The sacrifice of Christ was set prior to Adams creation. This means that God KNEW the sacrifice would be needed before He set the plan in motion... "crucified from the foundation of the world."

   If God could create perfect character that could be able to NOT sin, then why didn't He create children like that and NOT have to allow Christ to die for what He could have prevented in the first place? This belief system has no logic or reason. To believe that God created man, then created Christ to save mankind, with the whole purpose for it all to make us exactly like Christ, is completely backwards. Why in the world create man capable of sin and with no hope of NOT sinning, then create Christ to save man from this situation, and in the process, be conforming man to be exactly like Christ in the end anyway? Why not do it like He did Christ and bypass this whole pathetic situation?

3. Given the above two scenarios, what actually happens to the nature of sin? What happens to character development and God reproducing Himself as scriptures clearly show? If God could produce a sinless son once, then He IS capable of producing Godly spiritual character by fiat. This then brings up the problem of Satan and His rebellion. If God could create perfect character, why did the angels rebel and why didn't God create them perfect and unable to sin as God is unable to sin?
   
   
4. What of free will and free choice, the whole point of the plan of God to begin with? Did Christ have free will or was His will set by God? If God can create perfect character, then all we understand of any plan is bogus. IF... IF this belief about Christ is true, then the very fact that mankind is as they are today, and the world is as it is, and prophecy is as it is, is proof that God is NOT true and is very unjust and unfair, and worst of all, the actual creator and cause of the state of the world today by creating the mess then allowing someone to die to clean it up... and this is totally unacceptable to me. If perfect character can be created once, it can be created an infinite number of times, and THIS truth alone would preclude the need for any plan to begin with.

   This minimizes sin to a game that God is playing and I would have to "question the true seriousness of sin" because of it... something that I believe is at the bottom of this whole thing.

Subsequent emails provided more statements that further revealed things:

They wrote: Jesus was begotten as a baby by YHWH, in Mary's womb. He has DNA from God and man. He is both the Son of God and man.

I responded: Please tell me where you get even the remotest idea of "spiritual DNA" from the bible? Sounds like only a theory to help bolster your belief. You mentioned earlier on the "back of God" issue that we are not speaking about flesh and blood with God, but now you bring up a physical element and claim it pertains to God. If this is true, why can't God have a back like a real back? Inconsistent...

My Question 2... (The point I was making was that Christ, if created, was created perfect with perfect character. If this is the case we have problems with why God didn't create US with this same perfect character...)

He wrote: Jesus chose not to sin. He was fully human. We can overcome sin because of him. God knows what he is doing!

I responded: Jesus Chose NOT to sin... WHY? HOW? You neglected all the discussion about Christ learning, etc. You can't be able to NOT sin unless you were given that ability or had it inherently. If it was given, why not give it to Adam as well? If it was inherent, that explains the whole nature of Christ's pre-existence. If God can create perfect character by fiat, which your belief DEMANDS, then this whole human experience is bogus and a game that shames God's very nature. Christ couldn't learn to NOT sin without having the ability to NOT sin from the beginning, PRIOR to His learning what He needed to learn.

They wrote: In your scenario, God created man, knowing he would sin, and then took his friend and gave him as a sacrifice. Why not skip all the evil and suffering if it was not needed? My Bible says that God gave his own Son because of his love for us. WE can speculate on better ways to do it, but what we need to do is find out what really happened!

I responded: That's my point exactly. God created mankind KNOWING full well they would sin. It was inevitable. It was impossible for them to NOT sin. Have you lost track of the plan of God and the nature of mankind? No human can NOT sin unless they have God's spirit in them and carnal nature under perfect control. Adam and Eve did NOT have God's spirit in them, therefore, they couldn't NOT sin.

Please realize (remember?) this: Hilel (who some want to incorrectly call Lucifer) was "perfect" in certain aspects, had NO one to tempt him, had no carnal human nature and yet HE SINNED. What chance do you suppose Adam and Eve had? THAT is the foundation of this whole thing. God knew from the beginning that mankind, created as flesh, WOULD SIN. THAT is why Christ was crucified from the foundation of the world. IT WAS ALREADY PLANNED PRIOR TO ADAM'S CREATION. Sin is SO bad that it took the life of a God being to bring about a state of sinlessness in humans over time. Character HAS to be taught, molded, formed, over time, through "fire." Did Christ have any of that before HE was ever tempted to sin?

If God could do what He did with Christ, KNOWING THAT MANKIND WOULD SIN, and He could "generate" sinless beings from the beginning, WHY NOT do that rather than have all this evil and suffering, as you rightly point out? There would be NO NEED for the suffering and evil to exist. THAT is what blows apart the whole idea of Christ NOT being pre-existent. There is a definite forgetting of the plan of God involved with this belief system. There is a very wrong foundation from which you build your belief system and force scriptures to say. Read on for more...

Question 3...

He wrote: Jesus developed his Godly character as he lived and reacted and learned, by the things he suffered. God gave the angels choice. Some rebelled. Some day we may know why.

My response: Your belief on this is severely flawed. Can you see that? What did Christ have BEFORE He "developed" His Godly Character that prevented Him from sinning? What was it that prevented Christ from sinning BEFORE He developed His Godly character enough so that He wouldn't sin? We are getting into some major illogical "carts before the horse" issues here. Think about this point more. God gave angels free choice, yes. Some rebelled and some didn't. SOME ARE EVEN NOW BEING SHOWN THAT SIN DOES NOT WORK BY THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

You really have to start on the right foundation with all this. Lay out all these issues, beginning with the above point, and you will see that the whole thing is a house of cards. It can't stand because of this one principle alone.

The following scripture indicates the plan God laid out and the roles both would play in this plan...

Heb 1:5 For to which of the angels said he at any time, you art my Son, this day have I begotten you? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?

This doesn't make sense if the Son were created and always the son. Here, the Father states that He was to be a Father to Christ, and Christ would be a son to him... sounds like roles chosen for a universal purpose and plan to build a family.

It might be added here that the concept of "God being One" is Jewish in origin. It is their prime belief and is partly why they simply do not accept or believe in Christ being God's son, equal to God in nature.

Others will claim that to believe in more than one God being is blasphemy, pagan, polytheism or whatever, but if scriptures teach that God and Christ, Father and Son, are bringing humankind into their kingdom in Christ's image... who is the image of the Father... what other conclusion can we come to?

See Christ and Did Christ Pre-Exist His human Birth? for more details on who Christ really is.

Binitarianism: One God, Two Beings Before the Beginning: Much more detailed discussion of this topic!

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