As mentioned several times, Paul warned against being corrupted away from the simplicity of Christ, framing the danger on the level of Eve being deceived in the Garden:

“But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we didn’t preach… you put up with that…” (2 Corinthians 11:3–4)

In this chapter, I will answer the question: Which Jesus did the apostles preach?

The Apostles’ Proclamation of Jesus—As Recorded in Acts

The Book of Acts is not speculation—it is the public record of what the apostles officially proclaimed (preached). The word Paul used was kēryssō (κηρύσσω). It means: “to be a herald; to officiate as herald; to proclaim after the manner of a herald.” What they authoritatively proclaimed, they proclaimed with boldness and clarity, not ambiguity. The content of their message is the Spirit’s benchmark. I will let the record speak for itself:

Acts 2:22: “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God to you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him among you, even as you yourselves know.”

Acts 2:32–33: “This Jesus God raised up… Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this, which you now see and hear.”

Acts 2:36: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know certainly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Acts 3:13: “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate.”

Acts 3:26: “God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to you first, to bless you…”

Acts 4:10: “By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead…”

Acts 4:27: “For truly, in this city, against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed…”

Acts 5:30–31: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed… God exalted him with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior.”

Acts 7:56: “[Stephen] said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’”

Acts 10:38: “Even Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power… for God was with him.”

Acts 13:23: “From this man’s offspring, God has brought salvation to Israel according to his promise…”

Acts 13:33: “God has fulfilled the same to us their children, in that he raised up Jesus, as it is also written… ‘You are my Son. Today I have begotten you.’”

Acts 17:31: “[God] has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained…”

This is the Jesus the apostles preached. It is simple enough that it needs no commentary, only an open heart to believe.

At no time did any apostle preach that Jesus was “god come to earth in the form of men.” That concept is read into the text, not read from the text. The Bible records that the idea of gods becoming men was clearly a pagan worldview. At no time did they preach that Jesus was a preexistent being who took on human flesh. At no time did any apostle preach that God was one substance consisting of three persons. To claim otherwise is to handle the data deceitfully.

“Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, even as we obtained mercy, we don’t faint. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by the manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. Even if our Good News is veiled, it is veiled in those who are dying, in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them.” (2 Corinthians 4:1–6)

A Change This Big Would Have Enraged Israel

Consider the drama that accompanied the transition from the Old Covenant to the New. That shift—from Torah observance, circumcision, and temple sacrifice with all of the priestly functions associated with it, to faith in a risen Jewish Messiah, and the admission of uncircumcised Gentiles into the faith—was enormous, and it played out in the agony of conflict among the Jewish apostles themselves. Peter needed a rooftop vision to approach Cornelius. The Jerusalem council convened to settle the question of Gentile inclusion. Paul withstood Peter to his face over table fellowship. These were Jewish men, steeped in Scripture, wrestling in real time with what God was doing: leading them to all truth.

Now consider what Trinitarian development required. A development those same apostles, and their immediate successors, somehow failed to proclaim—or even hint at—the most radical theological claim in the history of monotheism: that the God of Israel was not ‘one He’ but three Hes. That the man they preached as approved, anointed, raised, and exalted by God was himself, God; but not God the Father as they assumed, “God the Son” who had never presented himself to the Jews as such, but was now being proclaimed by the Trinitarians as the one who spoke directly to the Jews.

Proclaiming the death, burial, and resurrection of a preexistent divine being to first-century Torah-observant Jews, rather than a man approved by God as was consistently prophesied by their Scriptures, would have been instantly recognizable as paganism—and would have ended the Jerusalem movement before Pentecost was over, by stoning. And rightfully so.

Trinitarians are dishonest in claiming that such an exchange could or did happen without intense discussion, drama, open conflict, and an expressed resolution. That is precisely what occurred in the transition from the Old Covenant ordinances to the New, beginning with the acceptance of Gentile believers who were not commanded to keep the law of Moses.

This was the elephant in the room that led me to research how mainstream Christianity transformed from a branch of the most monotheistic religion on earth into the belief in a three-person deity. I knew it couldn’t have happened among first-century Jews—and it didn’t.

Instead, that transition played out entirely among Gentile Christians, a full generation and more removed from the apostles, who read pagan concepts of triune beings and divine incarnations back into a text where the apostles themselves were completely silent on such things.

The silence in the book of Acts is damning evidence, according to Paul. What the apostles did not preach is as telling as what they did preach to the contrary. That’s why I provided what they did preach. They preached a foundation—and it was not a philosophical construction about divine substance. It was a confession:

“You are the Anointed One, the Son of the Living God”

That is the true confession of the Christian faith. In context:

“…Jesus…asked his disciples… ‘Who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Anointed, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. I also tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly… I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven…” (Matthew 16:13–19)

There is not one place in the entire Bible where God is said to be, or even can be, anointed. Peter’s confession literally means: “You are the Anointed Man…” Jesus identified this confession as the rock upon which He would build His assembly (v. 18) and declared the Father himself had revealed it.

This is the foundation regarding Jesus Christ (Jesus the Anointed). This is precisely what Jesus was referring to when He said things like this:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.” (Luke 4:18)

“All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18)

Those are the two forks in the road: Peter’s confession of the Anointed Man, or the pagan idea of gods come to earth in the form of men (Acts 14:11). One came by revelation from the Father. The other claims that additional critical enlightenment comes from outside the Bible—by understanding the gods of the people around them, a pagan view of logos/word, and interpreting Scripture through that worldview. The former honors God’s greatest commandment that Yahweh is ‘one He’; the latter assumes that Scripture is best interpreted through a pagan view of logos—and that this assumption gives them the right to qualify God’s greatest commandment, and in qualifying it, to disobey its specific wording.

Joshua posed the same choice to God’s people long ago:

“Choose today whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.” (Joshua 24:15)

If you are still in doubt about which God to follow, allow Jesus himself to answer:

“And this is life in the age to come, that they know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent—Jesus the Anointed One.” (John 17:3, REV)

The Father is the only true God. Jesus is the one He sent. That is the confession the apostles preached, the foundation Jesus declared, and the truth this book has been written to defend.

And what does God command of us concerning His Son?

“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” (Mark 9:7)

“The Lord God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him in all things whatever he says to you. It will be, that every soul that will not listen to that prophet will be utterly destroyed from among the people.” (Acts 3:22–23)

Anything else comes from pagan origins.

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