By Tim Warner © www.4windsfellowships.net (07/02/21)
Trinitarians take great pains to honor and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. He has been given “the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”1 Honoring Jesus in the same way that we honor the Father is both noble and biblical, and exactly what God intends. “Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.”2
Yet it should not go unnoticed that “the name that is above every name” was awarded to Jesus Christ by God, thus indicating that God is Jesus’ superior not His equal. Likewise, honoring the Son as we honor the Father is because the Father entrusted the Son with His own authority, again implying the superiority and priority of the one who granted this to His Son. Jesus Himself said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”3 Again, Jesus became the recipient of honor, authority, and the name above every other name from His Father’s bestowal. None of these things are the result of inherent equality with God in nature as the Trinitarian “co-equal, co-eternal” dogma asserts.
Furthermore, Jesus and the Apostles attributed all of Jesus’ miracles to the Father performing the works through Him by His holy Breath.4 Jesus claimed that His apostles would also do the same works and even greater works once the promise of the holy Breath of God upon them was realized on Pentecost.5 Jesus’ miracles do not demonstrate that He was inherently “God” cloaked in flesh as Trinitarians claim any more than the miracles performed by the Apostles in Acts indicate the same about them.
Jesus said that God seeks those who will worship Him in Spirit (Breath) and in Truth. Exalting the Son of God so that He becomes His Father’s peer instead of God’s subordinate Son and obedient Servant6 may seem honorable. Yet this extreme exaltation of the Son is at the expense of God Himself. The Father alone “gives life to everything, and … who alone is immortal.”7 This is not worshipping God in Truth, in the manner and for the right reasons for which God seeks to be honored and desires us to honor His Son.
Yet an even more destructive result stems from Trinitarian’s straining to exalt the Son beyond what Scripture reveals. By their making Jesus out to be the Father’s peer merely cloaked in human flesh, having all of the powers of full divinity concealed, they have placed Jesus’ example completely out of reach for us to follow. Scripture teaches plainly that we as Christians are as fully equipped as Jesus was to overcome sin and live a victorious life aided by God’s dwelling in and among us by the Breath of Truth.8 Jesus, as the Word having become flesh9 (a complete transformation from divinity to humanity), became exactly what we are in every way.10
We have no inherent and hidden super powers of divinity and neither did He. He was “tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.”11 He overcame His temptations using the very same tools available to each one of us. He had to learn obedience just like us. He had to be tested and He had to be perfected by proving His own faith by humble obedience to death on the cross. He was aided in all of this only by the Father’s presence with and in Him by means of the holy Breath. All of these things are plainly taught in Scripture. Yet they are denied by Trinitarian dogma and its misguided attempt to exalt “the deity of Christ.”
Philippians 2:8 NASB
8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Hebrews 2:14-18 NASB
14 Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; 15 and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. 16 For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham. 17 Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.
Hebrews 4:15-16 NASB
15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 5:7-9 NASB
7 In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.
8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.
9 And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation,
Jesus is the perfect pattern which we must follow to overcome, using the same assistance the He received.
Revelation 3:21 NKJV
21 “To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”
Hebrews 12:1-4 LGV
1 Certainly, we also, having such a massive cloud of witnesses surrounding us, tossing aside every excess load and plaguing sin, should run with endurance the grueling course lying ahead of us, 2 looking unto the Founder and Finisher of the Faith– Jesus. Who, instead of [choosing] the calm delight lying ahead of Him, [He] endured the cross, ignoring the disgrace, and is now seated on the right of the throne of God. 3 For consider the one having endured such heckling by sinners, so that you may not be exhausted, despairing in your lives. 4 You have not yet withstood unto blood, contending against sin.
The “prompt assistance” that we receive at the “throne of grace” is the same prompt assistance that Jesus received while He was tempted by the devil for forty days and nights. It is the same that Jesus received when He struggled with His decision in the garden of Gethsemane. His role as our High Priest according to the Melchizedek arrangement is made possible by His experiencing the human condition in all of its difficulties and suffering without a “safety net,” having only the inherent abilities that all humans share, in total reliance upon God.
Trinitarianism is in part a major factor and driving force behind the inability of many Christians to overcome sin and to persevere in extremely difficult times. Jesus’ example is automatically unattainable because in Trinitarianism He was not really exactly like us. He could not actually sin, and therefore He was not really tempted in all things as we are due to His alleged inherent “divinity.” He could perform miracles, heal the sick, and calm the tempest, by His alleged inherent divinity and equality with His Father, while we are all powerless to do such things.
Likewise, God heard and answered all of Jesus’ requests. But for the most part, Christians do not see the many promises of Scripture realized regarding God granting all of our requests. So those promises are hidden away in a closet and explained away. This is largely caused by a faulty understanding of who Jesus actually was and is.
Trinitarianism’s improper exaltation of Jesus Christ has fostered a defeatist Christian mentality, that the genuine Christianity experienced by the Apostles and evident in Acts is unattainable, “having a form of godliness but denying its power.”12 Following Jesus is actually impossible to achieve, thus God accepts me just as I am. Modern Christian music has plenty of this mentality also and reinforces a defeatist mentality regarding sin. This mentality produces a very unhealthy condition, and over-dependence on God’s alleged endless “grace” and “mercy.” It produces Christians who just want to know the minimum requirements so they can just go about their lives living for pleasure.
It promotes the easy believism Gospel message, once-saved always saved, and Calvinism’s doctrine of unconditional election. It produces anemic Christians who take God’s commandments as mere suggestions, who strain God’s grace by preferring to willfully sin first and ask for forgiveness later. The bottom line is that this kind of Christianity will not survive in the coming storm – the great tribulation which will be unlike anything before.13
This kind of Christianity makes its adherents prime pickings for the great falling away that both Jesus and Paul said would come just before the “Man of Sin” is revealed.14 The “overcomers” among the seven letters in Revelation15 and in the time of tribulation16 are those who learn to “overcome” the sin in their own lives by following in the footsteps of Jesus before the severe difficulties of that time arrive.
All wrong doctrine has negative consequences, which is why right doctrine must be the foundation on which our practical Christianity is built.17 Right doctrine, held by humble Christians who do not seek to justify their sin but seek God’s assistance, leads to holiness and godliness. Wrong doctrine gives permission to anemic Christians to remain as they are rather than strive for holiness and to follow Jesus Christ with total abandon.
Notes
1 Philippians 2:9-11 NIV
4 John 5:19,30; John 14:10; Acts 2:22; Acts 10:38
11 Hebrews 4:15
14 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8 (The Man of Sin will continue only for 42 months, 3.5 years, just before Jesus returns as King (Daniel 12:11-13; Matthew 24:15; Revelation 13:5-8).
15 See the closing promises for each of the seven letters in Revelation 2-3
Living as a Christian in this World 