…Jesus Christ… was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. (Romans 1:3, KJV)

blasphemous systems… divide the Lord… saying that he was formed of two different substances. For this reason also he has thus testified to us in his Epistle: “Little children, it is the last time; and as ye have heard that Antichrist doth come, now have many antichrists appeared…” Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 16, par. 5.

What we want to show in this chapter is extremely simple. On one hand, the Scriptures are very clear and consistent that Christ was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. On the other hand, early Christians like Irenaeus called the “Dual Nature” doctrine “blasphemous” and “antichristian.”

The first quote provided above encapsulates the simplicity of Jesus. The second quote encapsulates and refutes the opposite view. If you can see the difference between those two quotes, then you’ve grasped the point here. The rest of this chapter will be spent covering the details and exposing the magnitude of influence of antichristianity, the actual inventors of the dual-nature doctrine.

Onenessians love to call themselves “apostolic” because they deem themselves to be closer to apostolic Christianity than other Christians. But is this label entirely accurate? Consider this question as you read this chapter: just how “apostle-like” would it be to embrace and teach what the apostles called “antichristian” doctrines?

The apostles said they used great plainness of speech (2 Corinthians 3:12). Some versions interpret this as great boldness of speech. Either way, there would be no sense whatsoever for them to hide what they were saying about the Son of God in “code words” that mean exactly the opposite of what has been spelled out throughout the Bible. Ignoring these truths is how the Trinitarians ended up with the Trinity.

Like the Trinitarians, Onenessians use “code words” that mean something entirely different than what the Bible means when using those same phrases. That is what we are going to show in this chapter: the Onenessians deceive people into believing that Father and son are “code words” for Christ’s dual natures of deity and flesh rather than referring to specific types of relationships between separate individual personalities as they clearly and consistently indicate in all literature, biblical or otherwise.

In our last chapter we wrote, “the antichristian Gnostics were the first Trinitarians… And it was directly from the antichristian Gnostics that Tertullian… adopted the idea of the Trinity.” The truth we are going to show in this chapter is that this is also true about the source of the “dual nature” doctrine.

Like the Trinity, Tertullian also adopted this doctrine from the antichristian Gnostics and made it acceptable to those who otherwise wouldn’t consider themselves Gnostics.

Let’s first ground our position in the Scriptures. The following passages clearly and consistently teach one truth: that Jesus Christ was made of the seed of David according to the flesh and was made like us in all things. This should be as simple and as cut and dried as anything that ever was. It is almost as clear as the first commandment!

Concerning His Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we received grace and apostleship, for obedience of faith among all the nations, for his name’s sake. (Romans 1:3–5)

My relatives according to the flesh… Are Israelites… From whom is Christ as concerning the flesh… (Romans 9:3–5)

Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel. (2 Timothy 2:8, KJV/NKJV)

This concept of Jesus being the offspring of David comes from God’s sworn oath to David:

Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he foreseeing this spoke about the resurrection of the Christ. (Acts 2:30–31)

Why would people want to believe their man-made definitions and doctrines trump God’s sworn oath? This oath was originally captured in this passage:

⁸…Thus says YHWH [to David]… ¹²When your days are fulfilled, and you shall sleep with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who shall proceed out of your bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. ¹⁴I will be his father, and he shall be my son. (2 Samuel 7:8–14)

This isn’t deep. It isn’t mysterious. It isn’t shrouded in unfathomable mystery. It is a simply stated truth in the Bible. And it is emphasized by the fact that it is one of the few places in the Bible where God (who cannot lie in any way) swore with an oath that it would come to pass. And yet, even still, some people have a hard time believing God’s sworn oath without adding to it or diminishing from it. These verses are simply explaining the truth.

The Bible even clearly explains how Christ was made:

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law. (Galatians 4:4, KJV)

Notice carefully that this verse doesn’t say that only Christ’s flesh was “made of” a woman, it says God’s Son was made of a woman. “Made of” is two words, and means literally “to become of” a woman. In Genesis 2:7 we are told, “God formed man of the dust of the ground.” Most Christians have no problem accepting this on faith since it is what God’s word declares. Next we find in Genesis 2:21 that God made woman out of one of Adam’s ribs. Again, most Christians believe this on faith because it is written in God’s word. But then we come to Jesus, whom the Bible says was “made of a woman,” and now, people hesitate. But that is exactly what happened. God’s word says that God’s Son has been “made of a woman.” That’s the simple, biblical, and yet amazing truth.

Notice also that this son was born at a certain point in time, and that moment in time was when he was made of a woman. This refutes all Trinitarian ideas (both Arian and Athanasian) of an eternal or pre-human existence of the Son of God.

Next we look at a passage that has caused a lot of confusion. Later we will show exactly where that confusion originated. For now, let’s look at what it says.

The book of the generation [genesis=beginning] of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham… (Matthew 1:1)

Matthew is using genesis here as a Greek rendering of the Biblical Hebrew used when listing genealogies in the Bible (the “begats”). It means “beginning” or “origin” in the sense of family descent. So Matthew has deliberately patterned his wording on that used in the Hebrew Bible. That means, according to Matthew, Jesus didn’t begin before this. The word for beginning used here means “source, origin, a book of one’s lineage, i.e. in which his ancestry or progeny are enumerated, used of birth, nativity… ” (“NT:1078” Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, PC Study Bible formatted Electronic Database, 2006 by Biblesoft). Then Matthew goes on to describe Christ’s miraculous birth from his mother Mary:

¹⁶Jacob became the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus, who is called The Anointed One. ¹⁷So all the generations [source/nativity] from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the exile to Babylon fourteen generations; and from the carrying away to Babylon to the Christ, fourteen generations. ¹⁸Now the birth of Jesus Christ was like this; for after his mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, before they came together, she was found pregnant by the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:16–18)

First, recall the two words from Galatians 4:4 above: “made of” a woman. Next, note that Matthew does not likewise say that Christ was “made of” the Holy Spirit, only that Christ was in Mary’s womb “by” the Holy Spirit. This is a huge difference because of the use or lack of one word. That one word designates what this son was “made from.” The Holy Spirit made this happen just as God said He would when He told David, “I will set up your seed after you” (2 Samuel 7:12, above). So in perfect agreement with this, Matthew does not say that the Son was “made of” the Holy Spirit in the way he is said to be “made of” a woman. Matthew did not spend all that time recounting Jesus’ genealogy, his nativity, his source, and then when he got to verse 18 say, “Oh, and by the way he is also ‘made of’ the Holy Spirit.” No, he was merely mentioning that it was the Holy Spirit that made this happen, which is what we know as his miraculous virgin birth. Matthew 1:18 does not negate all the other clear Scriptures in the Bible, such as the ones we’ve just read, no matter how many people try to read that into the passage. God did not “renege” on His sworn oath that the Messiah, His son, would be born of the seed (or offspring) of David! The Bible doesn’t explain it any further than this other than to say Jesus was “made of a woman.” That tells us that God made Jesus out of the woman in the same way He made Adam out of dust and Eve out of Adam.

Let’s take a look at the meaning of the word genesis as used in the Book of Matthew.

NT:1078 1. Genesis is found 5 times in the NT, in the sense of birth (Matthew 1:18; Luke 1:14), genealogy (Matthew 1:1), and source, root (James 1:23; 3:6).

2. In secular Greek, esp. in Plato, genesis is attested in the sense of origin and beginning, in contrast to fqora (dissolution); and in the sense of becoming, in contrast to ousia (being) and what has come into being, or creation (kosmos). It is also used in temporal contexts for lineage and descent. In the latter sense it is used genealogically; i.e., every god, every hero looked proudly to his descent…

3. Matthew 1:1, in dependence on the language of Genesis 5:1, speaks of the “book of the genealogy” (or history of the origin) of Jesus Christ and proceeds from David and Abraham… Cited from the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (Location: Eerdmans, 1990.

In other words, by using the word genesis for Christ’s birth, Matthew was clearly disallowing that Jesus is an incarnation of a previously existing deity. The word “incarnation” isn’t in the Bible, nor is the meaning of “incarnation” spelled out anywhere in the Bible. What is the difference in these two words? Well, everyone alive today can point to a day when they were “born,” but how many of us call our birthday our “incarnation” day? According to the Bible, Jesus had a birth, not an incarnation. Matthew was talking about Jesus Christ’s actual, literal beginning and his genealogy by which he was brought into being. Luke’s telling of the story adds some additional insight into the way Jesus’ birth was understood. Keep in mind that even though this book was written from the viewpoint of the time of Jesus’ life, it was actually penned many years after the apostles had received the Holy Spirit and had been walking in the full truth.

³¹Behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and will call his name ‘Jesus.’ ³²He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David. (Luke 1:31–32)

This passage makes clear that Jesus would actually be the Son of David, but would be “called” the Son of the Most High (God), and God would “give” him the throne of his father, David. No talk of Jesus being an incarnation of God here, just evidence that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s plan for the Messiah to be declared His own son, just as He had sworn.

This passage confirms all that we’ve read so far and adds more detail to emphasize Christ’s humanity:

¹⁴Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, ¹⁵and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. ¹⁶For most assuredly, not to angels does he give help, but he gives help to the seed of Abraham. ¹⁷Therefore he was obligated in all things to be made like his brothers, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people. ¹⁸For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted. (Hebrews 2:14–18)

He was obligated to be made like us in all things. Not in some things, as some would have it; not somewhat like us, as many suppose. How many of us are made up of 100% deity and 100% humanity? No one. If Christ was made out of deity at all, in his personality or anything, then he was not made like us in all things. It’s that simple, and anything else is jumping to conclusions. This Scripture even explains to us why this is so. Jesus had to be the same flesh as us in order to save us.

As we’ve seen so far, this biblical truth was spelled out and described quite clearly, consistently, and thoroughly. However, the antichristian Gnostics came up with another idea, which is called the “Dual Natures of Christ” doctrine.

We will get back to that in a moment, but first, let us prepare by reviewing what John, speaking in response to the antichristian Gnostics, said about Christ’s flesh. As you read these, recall our second quote at the beginning of this chapter, where Irenaeus identified those “blasphemous systems” that divide the Lord into two substances as being of the spirit of “antichrist.” Recall that Irenaeus said these next verses were written to testify against the “two natures” doctrine of the antichristians:

…Many deceivers… don’t confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist. (2 John 7)

…Every spirit who doesn’t confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the spirit of the antichrist… (1 John 4:2–3)

Note that John didn’t say Jesus came in “a” flesh, but rather in “the” flesh. In this way we know that John obviously agreed with Paul that there is only one type of human flesh:

All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, another flesh of animals… (1 Corinthians 15:39)

There simply are not two or more types of human flesh. What does this mean? It just means that if Jesus came in a different flesh, or different type of humanity than that of the rest of us, then he was a different kind of creature than us. And if he was a different kind of creature than us, then he is not eligible to be the high priest for us, according to Hebrews 2:17. And if anyone says that he is of a different humanity than us, John calls this the spirit of antichrist.

Now let’s read what Jesus said about being born human:

⁶That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Don’t marvel that I said to you, You must be born anew. (John 3:6–7)

Jesus was confirming an obvious truth: that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Consider that in connection with what John said, that those who don’t confess “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” are of the spirit of antichrist. Therefore, to deny that Jesus was made of the one flesh of man when he was born of Mary would be to make both Jesus and John out to be untrue. Thus, the dual nature doctrine of Gnostics is precisely the antichristian spirit, or attitude, that John was warning us against! This also explains why Jesus had to be baptized and receive the Spirit of God just like the rest of us: he also was born of the flesh!

Even Jesus himself, though he kept the law and never committed sin, also had to walk by faith, and through faith receive the born-again-of-the-Spirit experience. Why? Because it is written:

…A man is not justified by the works of the law but through the faith of Jesus Christ, even we believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law, because no flesh will be justified by the works of the law. (Galatians 2:16)

²⁰Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin. ²¹But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets; ²²even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all those who believe. For there is no distinction. (Romans 3:20–22)

No flesh, apart from faith, is justified in the sight of God. This also applies to Jesus, who John says came in the flesh. If we don’t want to be “against Christ,” we’ll believe it! That means the opposite is also true: those who want to make Christ the man into a spiritual being do so because they don’t truly believe that Jesus came in the flesh. Instead, they have a spirit of antichrist, because that is exactly what the antichristians did: redefine Christ to be something personally extra-human.

These verses speak of having faith in Christ, but we can only have faith in Christ because Christ first displayed faith to God, and it is that faith we are to emulate:

¹Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus; ²who was faithful to him who appointed him, as also was Moses in all his house. (Hebrews 3:1–2)

Therefore, Jesus could say he gave us an example (John 13:15), and this is also why he submitted himself to John’s baptism, saying “Allow it now, for this is the fitting way for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). By explicitly using the word “us” (Greek hemin), Jesus declared that he was just as responsible to submit faithfully to God’s will as the rest of us. That is, he had to come to God by faith, just as the rest of us are commanded to do, and faith is hope, and hope that is seen is not hope. If Jesus were in any way God, then his faith would have been nothing more than a sham!

All this helps us understand that when the Bible uses the word “flesh,” it isn’t merely talking about a “human nature” that God somehow “robed himself in,” as in Trinitarianism and Onenessianism. Instead, it is saying that Jesus Christ came solely and completely as a flesh and blood human being, even as he said:

See my hands and my feet, that it is truly me. Touch me and see, for a spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones, as you see that I have. (Luke 24:39)

This is all biblically stated truth. These Scriptures teach us clearly and straightforwardly about the flesh, the humanity, of Jesus Christ, and that is the simplicity of Christ we are not to be moved from. In quoting these Scriptures, we have added no man-made teachings, nor any decisions made in councils hundreds of years after the apostles walked the earth. We haven’t had to reach into pagan philosophy or Gnostic inventions for words and concepts. With the exception of some dictionary definitions of words the Bible uses, we’ve just let the Scriptures speak.

On the other hand, there are absolutely no Scriptures in the entire Bible that state, teach, explain, or even imply that the person of Christ himself was made of or consisted of two natures or substances.

So then, having laid the biblical foundation, we will now see how Christians moved away from the biblical (“Born of the seed/offspring of David”) Christ.

Recall from Chapter Nine that the term “Christ” is the English equivalent of “Anointed One” and specifically means that something has been granted or given to the one being anointed. That being the case, the phrase “antichrist” literally means to be against the idea of an Anointed Man as our savior!

The critical point to keep in mind is simply that Jesus’ title “Christ” is descriptive of the manner in which he received his calling and office. As Jesus said, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth…” (Matthew 28:18–19). This is why it is important to understand that to be “antichristian” is to be against the idea that Jesus was a man to whom God gave all authority. It’s just that simple. When we read the term “antichrist” in the Bible, we should reinterpret it in our minds to mean “against-the-anointed-one.”

So just how big of a deal is this? Well, notice what prominent Oneness writer David Bernard wrote on the subject:

It is necessary to distinguish clearly between the deity and the humanity of Christ… Jesus was both God and man at the same time… Jesus was fully God, not merely an anointed man… David Bernard, Symposium on Oneness Pentecostalism 1986, (Saint Louis: Word Aflame Press, 1986), 126.

In other words, the Oneness confession of belief, as stated above, is expressly against the idea of Jesus being “merely an anointed man” who, as such, was given all authority by God. Thus, according to David Bernard, and any Onenessians who agree with him, it is “necessary” to interpret Jesus through the antichristian doctrine of dual natures! This is how people unwittingly confess to being against the anointed one (antichristian) simply by adding that Jesus was also the very God who anointed him. This idea totally negates the very meaning of being anointed!

In the same way that Trinitarians claim they believe in one God but then redefine “one” to mean that multiple persons are that one God, so Onenessians merely redefine what it means to be a human who was given all authority. Onenessians who hold such beliefs are actually saying they are against the anointed one in the same exact way as the original Gnostics were: by claiming that Christ was an incarnated deity made of two natures, deific and flesh, and thus “not merely an anointed man.”

This is what we learned from Irenaeus. So let’s recall Irenaeus’ words again. We quoted him briefly above, but now let’s read what he says in context and note particularly how he uses the Scriptures to make his case against the “dual natures” doctrine of the antichristians.

Therefore did the Lord also say to his disciples… “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead, and that repentance for the remission of sins be preached in his name among all nations.” Now this is he who was born of Mary; for he says: “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected, and crucified, and on the third day rise again.” The Gospel, therefore, knew no other son of man but him who was of Mary, who also suffered; and no Christ who flew away from Jesus before the passion; but him who was born it knew as Jesus Christ the Son of God, and that this same suffered and rose again, as John, the disciple of the Lord, verifies, saying: “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have eternal life in his name,” –foreseeing these blasphemous systems which divide the Lord, as far as lies in their power, saying that he was formed of two different substances. For this reason also he has thus testified to us in his Epistle: “Little children, it is the last time; and as ye have heard that Antichrist doth come, now have many antichrists appeared…” -Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 16, par. 5.

In Irenaeus’ time it was “blasphemous systems…” that “divide[d] the Lord… saying that he was formed of two different substances.” As with the Trinity, talk of two natures or two substances is not found anywhere in Scripture. The first ones to talk like this were the Gnostics. And with that thought, keep in mind that this disciple of John’s disciple Polycarp testifies to us that it was “for this reason,” that of the blasphemous dual nature doctrine itself, that John wrote against the antichristian Gnostics!

This, again, is something I used to teach and believe, but it was in ignorance, as I’m sure it is with many well-meaning Onenessians. But now that the light of truth is being shed on the origin of the “dual natures” idea, it puts the onus back on Onenessians either to quote the Scripture that actually says Christ was made of two natures, or to search the Scriptures to see if the things being presented here are so.

Now, let’s read what Irenaeus wrote against the Gnostic idea that Christ was made of a different humanity than the rest of us:

Those, therefore, who allege that he took nothing from the virgin do greatly err… For if He did not receive the substance of flesh from a human being, He neither was made man nor the Son of man; and if He was not made what we were, He did no great thing in what He suffered and endured… The Apostle Paul, moreover, in the Epistle to the Galatians, declares plainly, “God sent His Son, made of a woman” (Gal. iv. 4). And again, in that to the Romans, he says, “Concerning His Son, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh… Jesus the Anointed One our Lord.” [Rom i. 3, 4]… Superfluous, too, in that case [of the Gnostic invention] is His descent into Mary; for why did He come down into her if He were to take nothing of her?…” Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 22, par. 1–3, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885), 454–455.

According to Irenaeus, the early Christians understood that Christ was made human because he got the substance of his humanity from a human being. That means that the true, early, apostolic Christians did not believe that the Son got his humanity from God, which is something antichristians had also been saying. The early Christians did not believe that Christ was made of any kind of deific flesh or deific seed; rather, he was made from a woman, just as the Bible clearly and emphatically states.

These words pertain to all the Scriptures we quoted above that teach very clearly that Jesus was made of the seed (in Greek, the sperma), or offspring, of Eve, Abraham, and David! In the early years of Christianity, only the antichristians believed that Jesus received deific seed as part of his human makeup. This in itself is another major refutation of both Trinitarianism and Onenessianism!

Let’s see which side Bernard has taken on this additional issue of whether Jesus inherited his humanity from and through Mary as the Bible teaches, or was created of a different humanity than the rest of us, as Irenaeus spoke against the antichristians.

God started the human race all over again with Christ, so He might yet have the perfect humanity He originally intended when He created Adam…To fulfill this role, Christ came with an innocent, perfect humanity like Adam had in the beginning. David Bernard, Symposium on Oneness Pentecostalism, 125.

There you have it: Bernard’s doctrine is against the Scriptures and in support of antichristian concepts. According to the Bible, Christ was the (genetic/genesis) offspring of Eve, Abraham, and David. Yet according to Bernard and the Onenessians who agree with him, Christ did not receive his humanity from David through Mary, but rather was made of recreated humanity resembling Adam before the fall. Where is the Scripture for that? Does Bernard’s opinion trump all the Scriptures that we quoted above, including God’s sworn oath? If Oneness opinion trumps Scripture, then why are these Onenessians so adamant that they only teach what the Bible says? Let’s see if our circles of discernment can help shed any light on this.

According to Bernard, Jesus was made with “an innocent, perfect humanity like Adam had in the beginning.” How can that be if he was explicitly the offspring of David and was made of the seed of David according to the flesh? Would Bernard claim that David also had that “innocent, perfect humanity like Adam had in the beginning”? Of course not, because he already told us he believes God started the human race all over again with Christ.

So how is it that the “dual-nature” doctrine and the “recreated human nature” doctrine have now become the prominent doctrines of both Trinitarianism and Onenessianism? Answer: They have both been “spoiled” by philosophy, just as the apostle warned!

Let’s back up a moment and show how the idea of adopting Gnostic teachings evolved. We’ve already quoted Irenaeus enough to know that he identified these as false positions originating with the Gnostics. Now let’s look at how these ideas were adopted and expressed by Tertullian. Here’s what he wrote:

…I am introducing some “probohl” that is to say, some prolation of one thing out of another, as Valentinus does when he sets forth eon from eon, one after another… This will be the prolation… wherein we declare that the Son is a prolation from the Father, without being separated from Him. For God sent forth the Word…just as the root puts forth the tree, and the fountain the river, and the sun the ray. For these are “probohls” or emanations, of the substances from which they proceed. I should not hesitate, indeed, to call the tree the son or offspring of the root, and the river of the fountain, and the ray of the sun; because every original source is a parent, and everything which issues from the origin is an offspring. Much more is (this true of) the Word of God, who has actually received as His own peculiar designation the name of Son. But still the tree is not severed from the root, nor the river from the fountain, nor the ray from the sun; nor, indeed, is the Word separated from God. Following, therefore, the form of these analogies, I confess that I call God and His Word-the Father and His Son-two. Tertullian, Against Praxeas, Chapter VIII.

This is the way in which Tertullian redefined the words father and son as they applied to God and Jesus. The problem is, a “son” is not the same thing as a “root,” a “river,” or a “ray.”

Here is a graphic of the normal meaning of a father and son (with mom added in since Jesus was, after all, made of a woman named Mary).

That’s pretty simple, right? This is the normal and obvious meaning of the terms father, mother, and son. This is so simple I believe a three-year-old could comprehend it.

Now let’s compare the graphic above with Valentinus and Tertullian’s redefinitions of the Father and son. In addition, we have added the pagan “light from light” doctrine, which we introduced in Chapter Eleven:

We can clearly see the difference in ideas. In the four graphics above, there is no absolute, personal separation. The emanation of one god out of another is not a “birth.” In a human birth, there is an umbilical cord that is severed. In the first three emanations, there is no such severing of one individual from another. In the fourth, an identical substance is duplicated without any subtraction from the first. Biologically, in a human birth, the new child has its own DNA from conception, and the umbilical is merely a conduit for providing the baby with nutrients, etc. None of this is so in the pagan light-from-light doctrine. So Trinitarians don’t really believe in a father and son in the true meanings of the words; they believe in emanations, or extensions of one “god-substance” between the “persons” they “call” “Father,” “Son,” and Holy Spirit.

So what about the “light from light” doctrine? In our graphic there is a separation, but the problem is that in that analogy, the Son of God is still the same substance, or essence, of the Father. That makes the “light from light” doctrine entirely antichristian because it claims that Christ was not “of any other essence than that of the father.” In other words, he couldn’t have been flesh if he was only made of the same essence as the Father. John tells us that is antichrist. Even human children have their own unique DNA. The Trinitarian son is made of the exact same essence as the Father, which is what makes them “coequal” according to that theory.

These graphics demonstrate the major hurdle that the antichristian individuals had in supplanting the biblical view of Christ with the pagan view of an incarnation of deity. They demanded a deific savior, while the Bible declares a human savior. The idea of “three gods” isn’t the only concept that links the Trinity to pagan philosophy; rather, practically everything else about their descriptions of God’s Son does also.

On the other hand, Onenessians believe they are immune to such accusations of pagan influence. So, while we’re using graphics, let’s look at a graphic image of the Oneness view:

This image fits the Oneness view for the following reasons: a) there is only one personality, in their view, and the Father and son are accurately portrayed as that one person; b) as with the Trinitarian emanations, there is no severing of an umbilical cord and beginning of a whole new personality that necessarily exists in a true father/son relationship; c) the Son alone is made of dual natures and, in their view, God “dwelling in” Christ means that Christ is the person of God Himself; and d) the Son has no personality; in fact, according to Bernard, Christ would be an empty, lifeless shell of humanity if not for the Spirit of the Father in him:

Without the Spirit of God there would have been only a lifeless human, not the living Christ. Only in these terms can we describe and distinguish the humanity and deity in Jesus… David K. Bernard, Symposium on Oneness Pentecostalism, 130.

Descriptions such as this make the graphic above entirely fitting for Oneness. Just as with a puppet in the puppet master’s hand, in the graphic it is only the Spirit of God that gives life, personality, and animation to an otherwise lifeless son. This view negates hundreds and hundreds of clearly stated Scriptures to the contrary.

These graphics show that Modalism is the same antichristian rejection of Christ as the Trinity is, due to the simple fact that the personality of the Son in both cases is, supposedly, God. The antichristian “dual-nature” invention and the pagan idea of “gods coming to earth in the form of man” tie these together as equally rooted in Gnosticism.

Many people who claim to be “Christian” today (such as Trinitarians and Onenessians) unknowingly show themselves to be antichristian by the simple fact that they are adherents of the same “two-substances” or “dual natures” teaching that the Gnostics invented. Many adopt these ideas from Gnosticism without even being aware of it, because they’ve been wrongly taught this is what Christians have always believed! But that is simply not true.

We are not ignorant of other ways of explaining the “ontological hypostatic union” by Onenessians other than David Bernard. But the point is the same: absolutely none of them can merely go the Bible and quote the place where it simply explains their personal theory any more than Mr. Bernard can. That is one of the tragedies of the Oneness position: watching them grope for words that aren’t in their Bibles by which to explain their beliefs, and ultimately looking to pagan philosophy for the words and concepts they can finally be satisfied with. That is what idolatry is. Remember the golden calf that Aaron made? They called it YHWH, but the conception was purely pagan. It is the same with the method used to arrive at the Oneness doctrine, just a different era, and a different medium, and a different conclusion.

How the Gnostic Source of the “Dual Natures” Doctrine was Made Acceptable

We’ve shown previously that Tertullian got his idea of one god projected out of another god from the antichristian named Valentinus. And we saw earlier that Tertullian is usually credited with being the first to use the word Trinity, when in fact the Gnostics used that term before him. Well, now we are seeing that it was this same Tertullian who is often “credited” (wrongly) with being the first to tackle the issue of the two natures!

One historian (J. N. D. Kelly) has this to say about Tertullian’s introduction of the “two substance” doctrine:

Tertullian’s Christology was its grasp of the two natures in Christ; to use the term which he preferred, the Saviour was composed of ‘two substances’… If Jesus Christ, then, consists of ‘two substances’… Tertullian has the distinction of being the first theologian frankly to tackle this issue… he sums up: ‘We observe a twofold condition, not confused but conjoined, Jesus, in one Person at once God and man’… If it is said that Christ suffered and died, the reference is to the human substance. God does not suffer; the Christ-spirit cannot even have ‘suffered with’ (compassus) the flesh, as the modalists like to plead… J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1978 rev.), 150–152.

You may not have caught the theological cover-up here. This is how they hide the fact that the Trinity originated in antichristian Gnosticism. Somehow, Tertullian “has the distinction of being the first theologian frankly to tackle this issue.” For whatever reason, this historian has overlooked the facts of history. Antichristians had been teaching the doctrine of two natures well before Tertullian did. In fact, as we have already pointed out, Irenaeus, also before Tertullian, had quite effectively “tackled” the issue. But, unlike Tertullian, Irenaeus had spoken against the idea, calling it blasphemous! What else should an antichristian view be called if not blasphemous?

This is another example of what we mean by influence and not coincidence. It is not a coincidence that the antichristians also taught the “dual natures” doctrine of both Trinitarians and Onenessians, because we have Irenaeus testifying that it was repugnant to Apostolic Christians before Tertullian.

Do you remember the Trinitarian author from the last chapter who wanted us to believe that the reason the Trinity wasn’t spelled out in the Bible is because the apostles didn’t set out so much to teach doctrine? But we know the truth is that something different is taught in the Bible. Here we have that same attitude repeated with Onenessians, a smokescreen to try and explain why their man-made teaching isn’t in the Bible:

Actually Oneness believers do not look to the creeds for doctrine but to Scriptures alone. Whilewe can find important truths both in the Council of Chalcedon and in Nestorianism, neither is adequate. Therefore we should avoid the nonbiblical, trinitarian language of the traditional creeds… David Bernard,Symposium on Oneness Pentecostalism,144.

That initially sounds credible. But the question is, why, if Oneness believers look to Scriptures alone would they need any other source for help in defining their beliefs? If Bernard really believes what he says, shouldn’t he also reject the “dual nature” doctrine? On closer examination, his statement is exactly like statements from Trinitarians saying they didn’t get their Trinity from pagan philosophy, yet they then admit they do use philosophy to supply the words and concepts to explain it! That is what being double-minded is. To clarify the situation, here are some definitions of the beliefs Bernard is referring to:

The Council of Chalcedon… attempted to resolve the issue of how to express the concept of Christ as being both fully human and fully divine. Council of Chalcedon, accessed 1/26/2017, http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Council_of_Chalcedon.

Nestorianism is a Christological doctrine that emphasizes the disunion between the human and divine natures of Jesus.Nestorianism, accessed 1/2/017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorianism.

In other words, by referring to Chalcedon and Nestorianism, Bernard is admitting, though in subtly concealed, complex, technical, “ecclesiastical-speak,” that Onenessianshave been able to “find important truths” about “Christ… being fully human and fully divine” from those Trinitarian councils that defined and adopted the “dual nature” doctrines from the antichristians! That is, Bernard has just admitted to us that Onenessians got the idea of their “dual nature” doctrine directly from the Trinitarians, who got it directly by way of Tertullian from the antichristian Gnostics.

So then his claim that they look to Scriptures alone for doctrine is as empty and false and misleading as the same claim from the Trinitarians that they don’t look to pagans for their doctrine of the Trinity!

All one should have to do to refute Onenessianism is to ask the simple question, where does the Bible explain that Christ is made of dual natures? Or we might ask it this way: Why is an antichristian teaching preferable to the teachings of disciples just two generations removed from John, disciples who considered the “dual nature” doctrine blasphemous and even claimed that was the very reason John took up the task to write against “antichristians”?

Of course, Bernard is not alone. Many, if not most, Onenessians can be quoted as advocating the antichristian doctrine of “dual natures.” For example:

…He was God and He was man… He had a dual nature. He was absolutely flesh but He was absolutely God. He was absolutely the Father; He was absolutely the Son. He’s altogether the Father and the Son… Anthony Mangun, “Jesus the Man,” The Dual Natures of Christ (DVD, 2006), Disc 5, track 5 at 0:00–0:24

It is important to remember that because of the incarnation of God—the Spirit of God dwelling in human flesh—Jesus had two completely different natures: divine and human… 1 Timothy 3:16 shows that the mystery of godliness is concerned with the two natures of Jesus and what He did as the divine Messiah. It is a mystery because we as human beings cannot absolutely comprehend how Jesus could have two natures that would make him both fully God and fully man. R. Brent Graves,The God of Two Testaments (Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press, 2000), 67–68.

Any valid incarnational theologymust maintain that God is man, that it is God who is man, and that it is man whom God really is… Maintaining all three maxims requires that God’s incarnational becoming be of a certain sort. First, the union of the divine and human natures must be ontological, not merely functional…The only grounds upon which God can be said to be man, and the man He became can be said to be God, is if the union is ontological in nature.” Jason Dulle, “Avoiding the Achilles Heels of Trinitarianism, modalistic monarchianism, and Nestorianism: The Acknowledgement and Proper Placement of the Distinction Between Father and Son;” http://www.onenesspentecostal.com/ugstsymposium.htm.

I wonder if any of these Onenessians are aware that the idea of the “dual natures” of Christ originated with the antichristians. Or how will they react once this fact is made known to them? Will they continue to hold onto this teaching that was once called heresy by the early apostolic-taught Christians? Time will tell.

This is the Antichrist, He Who Denies the Father and the Son

²¹I have not written to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. ²²Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Anointed One? This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. ²³Whoever denies the Son, the same doesn’t have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2:21–23)

Let’s take a closer look at what this verse is saying. John says it is against the Anointed One (antichristian) to deny the Father and the Son. If we are to take these two words at face value based on the abundant and consistent and inflexible biblical usages, we would view these words as meaning this:

Father is from the Greek word pater, and carries with it the idea of one personality who begets another individual or personality, or who precedes another, or who teaches and instructs another, or of God who has ultimately begotten us all as distinct individuals and personalities from Himself. “Jesus said, ‘I am ascending tomy Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17). According to Jesus, we are sons to God in the exact same context in which he is a son to God.

Son is from the Greek word huion, which “in most cases… is used to refer to descendants in the literal or figurative sense.” NT:5207 from
Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament.

In the KJV Bible, as per a word search in Biblesoft’s One Touch software, and using a wild card to catch possible variant endings, there are some 3,597 occurrences of the word “son” and 1,718 occurrences of the word “father.” Even so, never once is the word “son” used or defined as a son to one’s self, nor is “father” used as a father to one’s self. Each word is exclusively used for distinguishing separate personalities. That is, they are both terms that describe a certain, specific type of relationship between two individuals. Those relationships do have some range of meaning, but that range is finite and fixed. A father is always and without exception prior and/or superior in either time or authority in relation to another individual or group of individuals, and a son is always either morally inferior or afterward in time, being in some way produced by an act of a prior, separate individual, such as a father, mother, or mentor.

Thus, to change the definitions of these words to something different than what the Bible uses them to mean is to disbelieve in the concept the apostle was referring to when using those particular words. Thus, those who believe that Jesus was not a personally distinct son from the Father actually are the very ones John was writing against in 1 John 2:21–23!

So then what is the Oneness view of 1 John 2:21–23? To answer that, let us look at what Anthony Mangun, Pastor of The Pentecostals of Alexandria, LA, teaches:

We believe in separate offices of God or manifestations of God the Father in the Son… The reason I believe in that is because I don’t want to be antichrist…

“1 John 2:22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.”

You can’t deny the Father and the Son but what you’ve got to proclaim is both of them are one. Father is Spirit, Son is flesh… We acknowledge the Father and the Son but we believe they are in Jesus Christ… It means you believe there was a Spirit that was God the Father that got in the flesh and came to this earth and that flesh was his Son and that he lived and he died and he was buried and he rose again… As Father in the OT, as Son in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as Holy Ghost in Acts through Revelation. That’s where we are today, we now have the Holy Ghost inside of us that is the third manifestation of Almighty God…

“1 John 2:23 Whoever denies the Son, the same doesn’t have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also.”…

Why is this? Because Jesus and the Father are one. He said if you deny Jesus you deny the Father also… Anthony Mangun, “God in Christ,” The Dual Natures of Christ, (DVD, 2006), Disc 4, track 1 at about 37:00–41:00.

Before addressing these statements, I want to give the reader a little background. I attended Anthony Mangun’s church in Alexandria, Louisiana, from 2000 to 2004. While I was there I was always very impressed by Brother Anthony, and I was also very supportive of him, and indeed still consider myself to have been blessed to be part of that congregation. However, no matter how much I may like or respect anyone personally, the question needs to be asked: Is that enough to overlook when an antichristian teaching regarding Christ is being put forth as the correct way to view Christ? Do I owe loyalty to someone who would preach an antichristian doctrine and expect us to believe it as truth?

The bottom line is that a Christian’s ultimate loyalty must be, first, foremost, and always to the true, biblical One God and His Christ, no matter whom it may offend. This is what being a truly One God person means! Anthony Mangun himself, several times in these teachings, asked the congregation to prove him wrong if they could. He also said this:

I have felt it necessary to let you know what error is and from whence it comes. Because the truth stands; whether I believe it, whether you believe it, whether no one believes it, truth is still truth. If that is a beige color, whatever color that is, I can sit here and believe it is black all I want to. And I can convince you that wall is black. But the truth is, it’s not black, it is beige. Truth is truth and no one can change truth. Ibid., Disc 4, track 1 at about 4:20.

Likewise, I have felt it necessary to show what an error the “dual nature” doctrine is and from whence it comes. So also, I owe it to Anthony Mangun and all my Oneness friends and acquaintances to help them come out of error into the marvelous light of truth that sets free.

Now, imagine my surprise when, sometime after moving away from Alexandria, about the same time I was discovering the true origin of the doctrine of dual natures, lo and behold, brother Anthony put out a series of teachings named that very thing, “The Dual Natures of Christ.” Anthony Mangun’s most essential problem is not that someone may or may not prove him wrong. His essential problem is that he has yet to prove himself right by the Bible!

Now let’s look at our graphic illustration of a father, mother, and son again, as compared to the Oneness view:

What jumps out at you is that, compared to the “son of the father in truth” view on the left, Mangun has changed the meaning of father and son into a different meaning. This he has done in the same manner in which he said you can call “beige” “black” all you want, but that doesn’t change it. The same is true with the words father and son. You can point to a puppet all day long and call it a son, and the puppet master its father, but that doesn’t change the definitions of father and son. That doesn’t mean you actually believe in a father and son. It means you have deceived yourself into believing an untruth, a lie! Onenessianism does not have The Father and The Son in truth; they only have a father and son to the extent they can redefine the words to mean something that they don’t mean!

Now compare these with the Trinitarian view of two persons in one nature, or essence.

What Onenessianism does is very much like the method that Trinitarians use. By redefining them, the Onenessians change the biblically separate persons into “natures” in one individual person. What Trinitarians do is change the one God into distinct persons having the same nature, or essence, and then claim they still believe in one God. But neither of these views is spelled out in Scripture, and both of these views absolutely negate what the Bible describes, which is the graphic of a father with a son who was made of a woman!

The Oneness graphic also shows us that we don’t have to rely only on Irenaeus to prove that the “dual nature” doctrine is antichrist(literally against the doctrine of the Anointed One). John had defined “antichrist” as being in denial of the Father and the Son. By redefining father and son to mean something different than those words mean, including the fact that theyalways refer to separate, personal individuals in specific relationship to each other, Mangun has quite effectively denied the true father and the true son by denying their true meanings and redefining them as something else and then supplanting the real father and son with something that means something akin to a puppet master and a puppet.

Contrary to Mangun’s interpretations, the real reason that you can’t have the father without the son is very simply because having a son or daughter is what makes a man a father! It is just like the fact that no man is a husband until he has a wife. On the other hand, you can have spirit without flesh (i.e., angels), and you can have flesh without spirit (i.e., a dead body), just as (to use Mangun’s analogy) you can have beige without black all you want. Black isn’t dependent on beige to exist, nor is beige dependent on black (though perhaps some may disagree). But that isn’t true with father and son. A father without a son is simply a man, and no son has ever been born who didn’t have a father. So you see these relationships of fathers and sons are totally dependent on each other hierarchically, and that is the difference between the truth and Mangun’s substituted man-made definitions!

I realize many Onenessians would call Jesus “Father,” but how many of them would say to him, “Jesus, my Son”? This helps emphasize the distinction in these titles. The idea would be blasphemous even to Onenessians to call Jesus their son! Thus, these relationships are dependent upon each other in a very specific manner. Though I’m a son, I’m not a son to everyone. I’m a father also, but I’m not everyone’s father. The terms are relative and dependent upon each other, and they have meaning that inherently includes a personal distinction between the two.

But so far, we still have just scratched the surface! Above all, we need to keep in mind that the relationship between a father and a son is, first and foremost, a moral one with moral values. Biblically, sons and fathers simply cannot be the same person; nor can they be coequal, because, by moral decree from God, children are to honor their fathers and mothers:

Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you. (Exodus 20:12)

²“Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with a promise: ³“that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.” (Ephesians 6:2)

One of Jesus’ prime examples against the Pharisees who made God’s commandments void, was through their practice of redefining, and resultantly negating, the moral values of the relationship between children and their parents:

⁶He answered them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. ⁷But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ⁸For you set aside the commandment of God, and hold tightly to the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and you do many other such things.” ⁹He said to them, “Full well do you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. ¹⁰For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother;’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’ ¹¹But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, ‘Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban, that is to say, given to God;’ ¹²then you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or his mother, ¹³making void the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down. You do many things like this.” (Mark 7:6–13)

These Pharisees made void the word of God by redefining the moral roles of children and parents. Incarnationists do the same thing when they redefine the roles of father and son between God as Father and Jesus as His Son. In doing so, they aren’t committing anything significantly different than those who redefine marital roles, which are also relationships that have moral values associated with them (e.g., Mathew 19:4; Romans 1:27; 1 Corinthians 5:1).

It is staggering to think of all the ramifications that are changed and corrupted from their original meaning by redefining the terms father and son as Onenessians especially do, but Trinitarians also do in their own way. With one stroke of redefinition, suddenly what the Bible so carefully and consistently defined has been transformed at their making into something different.

In the Incarnationist (Oneness, Trinity and Arian) model:

• It wasn’t really the Father’s “only begotten Son” (“made of a woman” as defined in the Bible) that the Father gave in John 3:16, but something different.
• It wasn’t really God’s “Son” who was born of Mary, and given the throne of David (Luke 1:32), but something else entirely.
• It wasn’t really God’s “Son” that God sent (John 4:14) into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him would be saved, as we are taught to believe in John 3:17.
• It wasn’t really a “Son” that God was speaking to in Matthew 17:5, when the voice out of the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”
• It wasn’t really a “Son” that Stephen saw at the right hand of God in Acts 7:56.
• It wasn’t really the very “Son of God” that the demons were afraid of in verses like Mark 5:7.
• It wasn’t really for God’s “Son” that a marriage was planned and arranged by God, as Jesus taught in Matthew 22:2.
• It wasn’t really God’s “Son” by whose death we have been reconciled to God, nor was it by that same “Son’s” life that we are saved, as we are taught in Romans 5:10.
• It isn’t really a “Son” that we are to believe in to escape the condemnation of the world, as John 3:18 tells us.
• It isn’t really a “Son” that we are to acknowledge in order that God remains in us, as is written in 1 John 4:15.
• It isn’t really a “Son” we are to believe on, as it says in 1 John 5:5, that we may overcome the world, but some other undefined thing, defined by man, that we are to believe in and confess instead.
• It isn’t really a “Son” that sets you free, as Jesus claimed in John 8:36.

How long would we need to go on with this list in order to make the case ironclad that Jesus is truly the “Son OF God” and not an incarnation of the Father or some emulation of the Father’s essence, which would change, pervert, and corrupt the bulk of the Scriptures that clearly define what it means, biblically, for Jesus to be the true Son of God?

Why, then, do some Christians feel inclined to redefine relationships to suit their whims and pet doctrines? The answer is given above: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Mark 7:6). So, according to this passage, changing God’s word is an outward symptom of a heart that inwardly rejects the truth of God’s word. This is why homosexuals justify gay marriages, it is why Trinitarians justify negating the first commandment to keep their Trinity, and it is why Onenessians redefine the relationship of Father and Son from God and Jesus and cling to their dual nature doctrine instead.

By their fruits you will know them, Jesus said in Matthew 7:20. That is why by the fruits of our lips we confess that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God (Matthew 16:16, 26:63–64; John 20:31; and so on)! And that is why true, biblical Christians are just as appalled at the Trinity and Onenessian redefinitions of The Father and The Son as they are at professing Christians redefining marriage.

The question really comes down to, what is God’s actual intent in the words of the Bible? It is wrongheaded to ask instead, “What can be concluded by reading into God’s words what it may seem to imply, but doesn’t clearly say?” There are no scriptures simply stating that a marriage between people of the same gender is as legitimate as a marriage between a man and a woman. No same-sex marriage has ever naturally produced offspring. This alone proves its inequality with heterosexual relationships, which form the basic building blocks of society. If everyone were homosexual, then in just one generation the whole human species would become extinct. Thus, the Bible never condones or even clearly defines in a positive light, a homosexual marriage. However, the Bible does clearly and consistently teach marriage between a man and a woman. For example:

⁴He answered, “Haven’t you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall join to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?’ ⁶So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.” (Matthew 19:4–6)

Just as there are no scriptures clearly affirming gay marriage, there are also no scriptures that clearly explain or describe that the Son is an incarnation of the Father (in the Oneness sense) or that God is three persons (in the Trinitarian sense). If any of these viewpoints (homosexual marriages, Oneness, or Trinity), is biblically acceptable, why doesn’t the Bible clearly proclaim it and then expound on it in detail? It is simply because none of them are what the Bible intended to portray, declare, or teach! To the contrary, the Bible DOES clearly teach and expound the details of the opposites of these conclusions: heterosexual marriages, and The Son of God doctrine! All those false, man-made relationships, therefore, have at least the following things in common: they lay aside the commandments of God in order to replace them with traditions and doctrines of men, making the word of God—in the area of the biblically defined moral relationships of each—null and void.

To be clear, Christians don’t have anything personal against gay people or gay marriages. The issue is solely what God’s word says about it. Beyond the propagation of our species, the real issue is that it annihilates the typology of the bride of Christ, in relation to Christ as her bridegroom. Marriage, Paul says, is a great mystery that teaches us about Christ and his ecclesia by way of typology:

²⁸Even so ought husbands also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. ²⁹For no man ever hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord also does the assembly; ³⁰because we are members of his body, of his flesh and bones. ³¹“For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will be joined to his wife. The two will become one flesh.” ³²This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ and of the assembly. (Ephesians 5:28–32)

This passage clearly teaches us that the marriage between a man and a woman represents the truth; namely, that the body of Christian believers under Christ is not morally or hierarchically “coequal” with Christ. He is our king and lord and corporate bridegroom. The reason that Christians don’t accept homosexual marriages as biblically viable is simply because that would be to confuse the role distinctions between Christ and the corporate body of believers. That is what a God-ordained marriage between a man and a woman represents (which isn’t to say a God-ordained marriage doesn’t also have validity in its own right).

Here is one of the best verses for teaching us that the moral values existing between God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, are similar to the moral values existing between husbands and wives, and between believers and Christ:

But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. (1 Corinthians 11:3)

This verse proves quite conclusively that Christ is not the person of the Father, any more than wives are the same person of their husbands, or any more than all the people who make up the body of Christ are the person of Christ! The verse also proves quite conclusively that there are both moral values and hierarchical roles among each of these three sets of individuals, and furthermore, that those roles and values have been ordained and established by God. Because it is God who has ordained and defined them, they are not to be redefined by man!

Both Trinitarianism and Onenessianism demolish these roles and their moral values by redefining the relationship between the Father and Son in the same way that homosexual marriage demolishes the roles of true husbands and wives. This explains why believers in the true Son of God doctrine cannot accept false views of Jesus as the true Son of God, any more than most Christians can accept homosexual unions as biblically viable, true marriages.

Since the presence of specific moral values is necessary for understanding the true Son of God, we would expect to find the Bible teaching and explaining in detail those moral values that exist between God the Father and Jesus His Son; and in fact, we do:

⁸Now therefore thus shall you tell my servant David, Thus says YHWH… ¹²…I will set up your seed after you, who shall proceed out of your bowels… ¹⁴I will be his father, and he shall be my son: if he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men… (2 Samuel 7:8–14)

⁴⁹ He said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?”… ⁵²And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (Luke 2:49–52)

⁸Though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered. ⁹Having been made perfect, he became to all of those who obey him the author of eternal salvation. (Hebrews 5:8–9)

For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many children to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings. (Hebrews 2:10)

⁸But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then are you illegitimate, and not children. ⁹Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? ¹⁰For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. (Hebrews 12:8–10)

Where both Trinitarians and Onenessians have failed to find details of their views of the relationship between The Father and The Son explained in Scripture, the Son of God position has not failed to deliver. These verses very clearly and specifically define Jesus’ relationship to the Father in matters of moral value and significance. If these moral values did not apply to Jesus, then he would have been illegitimate, and not a child or Son.

When you change the roles of father and son, you negate and annihilate what those relationships truly signify. That is why Onenessians and Trinitarians have changed their definitions: they don’t believe in, and apparently don’t want to believe in, the true Son of God that is spelled out in the Bible, any more than gays want to believe in the biblical definitions and biblical moral values of marriage that are spelled out in the Bible.

By tampering with the moral values that help describe God’s true Son, and by negating Jesus’ moral relationship in subjection to God as Father, Incarnationists have made their versions of Jesus into an “illegitimate” being, something that is NOT a son!

Now let’s compare how Onenessians use the exact same manner of interpretation that Pharisees used in making the word of God of none effect:

¹⁰For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother;’… ¹¹But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, ‘Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban, that is to say, given to God;’ ¹²then you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or his mother. (Mark 7:6–13)

“You can’t deny the Father and the Son, but what you’ve got to proclaim is both of them are one. Father is Spirit, Son is flesh… As Father in the OT, as Son in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John…” Anthony Mangun, “God in Christ,” The Dual Natures of Christ, (DVD, 2006), Disc 4, track 1 at about 37:00–41:00.

This type of redefining of the moral roles of fathers and sons is what Jesus clearly called: “¹³making void the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down. You do many things like this” (Mark 7:6–13).

To the contrary of the misguided extrabiblical definitions that Onenessianism and Trinitarianism introduce, there is seemingly no end to definitions and discussions of Jesus as God’s Son and God as Jesus’ Father in the Bible!

The graphics provided above make the relationships crystal clear. John said it is antichrist not to believe in the Father and in the Son. So, which one of the graphics truthfully illustrates a father and son relationship? The obvious answer is that the relationship of a father, mother, and son represents a true father and son. The graphic representing the Oneness attitude, is a perversion of a true father and son relationship. Thus Onenessians do not have “The Father and The Son” because they have redefined the true ones away, and inserted impostors in their places. Likewise, the Trinitarian view of emulation of substance is also a perversion of a true father and son relationship, as previously shown. Ironically, Trinitarians claim to believe in a true Father and Son relationship by making the Son an emanation of the Father’s essence, but then they redefine the emanation to be something that never did apply to any fathers or sons!

Interestingly, Mangun made a very good point against Trinitarians. He said they didn’t have the authority or the anointing to change what the Bible said. Who then gave Onenessians the authority and the anointing to change and thereby negate the biblical meaning of the relationship between a father and son in the case of God and Jesus the Anointed? Or perhaps some Oneness theologian would like to show us, where in the thousands of occurrences of the words “son” and “father” in the Bible was anyone said to be a father to themselves or a son to themselves?

This illustrates why we must keep in mind that words are labels that represent concepts. If this were not the case, our words would be meaningless and thus useless for communicating. The Bible says as much:

⁸For if the trumpet gave an uncertain sound, who would prepare himself for war? ⁹So also you, unless you uttered by the tonguewords easy to understand, how would it be known what is spoken? For you would be speaking into the air. (1 Corinthians 14:8–9)

It is critical to maintain the accurate meaning of words, particularly in the word of God and especially when it is trying to keep people from the error of antichristianity! A better way for Mangun to distance himself from the antichristian position would be to reject their “incarnation of deity” doctrine and their novel “dual nature” doctrine!

Let’s look at some of the Apostle John’s writings to discern whether we can see for ourselves if Jesus agrees with the Onenessian interpretation, or whether he writes as if the titles Father and son pertain to two distinct and separate personalities.

³⁰I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous; because I don’t seek my own will, but the will of my Father who sent me. ³¹If I testify about myself, my witness is not valid. ³²It is another who testifies about me. I know that the testimony which he testifies about me is true. ³³You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth… ³⁶But the testimony which I have is greater than that of John, for the works which the Father gave me to accomplish, the very works that I do, testify about me, that the Father has sent me. ³⁷The Father himself, whosent me, has testified about me. You have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his form. (John 5:30–37)

Jesus is not God because he can do nothing of himself! That is his explanation of himself! In John 5:30–37 Jesus couldn’t be clearer. He spoke of “myself” in distinction to the person of John the Baptist. No one I know believes John the Baptist was an incarnation of God. The point is, it is in this same context, that of personal distinctions, and using the same personal pronouns, that Jesus first established who he was and then distinguished himself from the “who” of the Father. He even went on to state that his audience had neither heard the Father’s voice nor seen His form at any time. Thus, those who claim that Jesus was an incarnation of God, or was the very person of God the Father in bodily form, make Jesus a complete liar or utter deceiver in this passage. That is to say, they aren’t willing to hear all the words of God or Jesus, only the ones that fit their preconception; any others they simply reinterpret to mean what they don’t say.

The Son of the Father in Truth

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 John 3)

This verse calls Jesus “the Son of the Father in truth.” As mentioned earlier, there are about 1,718 occurrences of the word father and about 3,597 occurrences of the word son in the Bible, and not one of them refers to anyone who is a father or son to themselves. But there is so much more to understand about what truly defines this “son of the Father in truth.”

So, in this subchapter, we’re going to continue showing how the Bible defines the sonship of Jesus Christ. Often people assume that Jesus is spoken of as a Son of God in the manner of human fathers and sons (for example, as if Christ were naturally an offspring of God’s essence), but this isn’t the case, as we shall see.

The first thing to keep in mind is that to be “true” means to be “biblical,” for “your word is truth” (John 17:17) means that what the Bible spells out is what is true. And what it spells out is that one of David’s offspring would be “declared” to be God’s Son. These next verses spell out this “truth”:

¹²When your days are fulfilled, and you shall sleep with your fathers, I will set up your seedafter you, who shall proceed out of your bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. ¹⁴I will be his father, and he shall be my son: if he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men… ¹⁶Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before you: your throne shall be established forever. (2 Samuel 7:12–16)

³For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers’ sake, my relatives according to the flesh, ⁴who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises; ⁵of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ as concerning the flesh. (Romans 9:3–5)

In the first passage, God Himself says that David’s offspring would be His Son. This is so important, becausethis is God’s definition of His own son. God knows what he is talking about, andGod is true. The passage from Romans reiterates this truth by saying it in another way: “Israelites… are the fathers…from whomis Christ as concerning the flesh.” This verse is essential because it defines Christ’s genealogy in a different way than is often presumed to be taught in John 1. While John 1 mayappearto say “God was made flesh,” in truth all John said is that God’s “word” was made flesh. Now, in Romans 9:3–5, we have the “it is written again” passage that explains to us that “the Israelites… are the fathers… from whom is Christ…concerning the flesh.” Which is the opposite of the idea behind the conclusion that “God was made flesh” as if the Son were made of some deific substance.

Then Galatians further explains the “substance” of which the Son was “made”: “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son,made of a woman, made under the law” (Galatians 4:4, KJV). These verses tell us that Jesus was made out of Mary, who was an offspring of David, and in this way, Israelites are the “fathers” of Jesus as concerning the flesh.

This truth, that Jesus is actually the son of Israelites (ultimately via Mary) in terms of “genealogy” (Matthew 1:1) is so immutable, that God swore to it with an oath to David:

Yahweh has swornto David in truth. He will not turn from it: “I will set the fruit of your body on your throne.” (Psalms 132:11)

³⁰Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, ³¹he foreseeing this spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was his soul left in Hades, nor did his flesh see decay. ³²This Jesus God raised up, to which we all are witnesses. (Acts 2:30–32)

God was very clear in His sworn oath to David: David’s offspring, would be, future tense, God’s Son. The apostles preached this promise was fulfilled when God raised up Jesus. In quoting Psalms 16:10, Peter was pointing out to the Jews that one of the promises made by God was that the true Son of David would not suffer the corruption of his flesh in the grave. This was certainly not true of David, or Solomon, or any other descendent of David. Only Jesus of Nazareth has had that promise from God fulfilled upon him.

This explains precisely why one of the main points Paul makes is that, in raising Jesus from the dead, God fulfilled his promise to the fathers through David. Neither Peter, nor Paul, nor any other biblical writer explained that event in any way other than God raising Jesus. This was not God raising Himself from the dead; this was God raising David’s offspring from the dead:

³²We bring you good news of the promise made to the fathers, ³³thatGod has fulfilled the same to us, their children, in that he raised up Jesus. As it is also written in the second psalm, “You are my Son. Today I have become your father.” ³⁴Concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he has spoken thus: “I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.” ³⁵Therefore he says also in another psalm, “You will not allow your Holy One to see decay.” ³⁶For David, after he had in his own generation served the counsel of God, fell asleep, and was laid with his fathers, and saw decay. ³⁷But he whom God raised up saw no decay. ³⁸Be it known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man is proclaimed to you remission of sins, ³⁹and by him everyone who believes is justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. ⁴⁰Beware therefore, lest that come on you which is spoken in the prophets: ⁴¹“Behold, you scoffers, and wonder, and perish; For I work a work in your days, A work which you will in no way believe, if one declares it to you.” (Acts 13:32–41).

Furthermore, for Paul, it was David’s son that was born of the seed of David, and it was that very same whom God raised from the dead:

¹Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Good News of God, ²which he promised before through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, ³concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, ⁴who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness,by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 1:1–4)

Scriptures such as these help us understand what it means for Jesus, biblically, to be “the Son of the Father in truth.” As we can see, there is a wealth of biblical data waiting to inform us if we would just listen and believe; yet nowhere does the Bible reveal such details in a Onenessian or a Trinitarian sense.

It is through such passages, and others like them, that we are taught that being a “son,” in the case of the Messiah, doesn’t have anything biblically to do with him being “emulated” from the “essence” of God’s “nature” in the manner that we humans are conceived and born. There are no such Scriptures, but an abundance of Scriptures do explain the Son otherwise.

There is an interesting truth about Christ’s actual humanity spelled out in 1 Corinthians 15, specifically in explaining the nuts and bolts of the resurrection:

³⁵But someone will say, “How are the dead raised?” and, “With what kind of body do they come?” ³⁶You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not made alive unless it dies. ³⁷That which you sow, you don’t sow the body that will be, but a bare grain, maybe of wheat, or of some other kind… ⁴²So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. ⁴³It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. ⁴⁴It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶However that which is spiritual isn’t first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. (1 Corinthians 15:35–46)

This passage explains to us that Jesus wasn’t raised with the same “body” that was put in the tomb. He was changed at the moment of his resurrection. Paul stated that Christ became a life-giving spirit at his resurrection. This explains why the uniquely Christian baptism, or infilling, of the Holy Spirit was not available until after Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. (See also Hebrews 9:8–9 and 10:1–14.) Paul’s statement that “the last Adam became a life-giving spirit” was about the one who was raised from the dead, not about the God who raised him. The one who was raised, Jesus Christ, was madea life-giving spirit in a manner very similar to the way Adam was made a living soul.

What these scriptures, then, do not say is that Christ was God beforehand, or that he somehow became the Son of God at his resurrection. A careful reading of all the texts on the topic simply doesn’t support such ideas. It is foundational Christianity to understand that Jesus was David’s son all along, and that it was as David’s son (in the sense of offspring and heir) that Jesus was God’s Son all along.

Jesus was the Son of God in God’s plan and foreknowledge before the world was even created, and it was through, or in view of and because of, God’s Son, who was born in Bethlehem, that God made the world:

¹God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, ²has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds. (Hebrews 1:1–2)

Jesus was proclaimed to be the Son of God at, and even because of, his birth:

³¹“Behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and will call his name Jesus. ³²He… will be called the Son of the Most High… ” ³⁵The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one who is born from you will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:31–35)

When he was 12 years old, Jesus proclaimed God as his Father:

He said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49)

Thus, Jesus affirmed that he understood himself, even at a very young age, to be the Son of God, not that he was God or would someday come to be God’s Son.

Furthermore, we know that Jesus was declared to be God’s Son by the heavenly voice that was heard at his baptism (Matthew 3:16–17; Mark 1:11; and Luke 3:22). We also know that the apostles confessed him to be the Messiah, the Son of God (Matthew 14:33 and 16:15), during his earthly ministry. Then we have John 3:16, the most quoted and translated verse in the whole Bible, declaring to us that Jesus was God’s Son even at the moment in time when he died to be the propitiation for sins for the whole world (Isaiah 53:12; Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2 and 4:10):

¹⁶For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him. ¹⁸He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn’t believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. (John 3:16–18)

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:10; see also Romans 3:25 and 1 John 2:2)

No Scripture clearly teaches otherwise. The idea that God incarnated Himself in order to die for our sins is an idea that is totally foreign to the teachings of the Bible. To change the Son into an incarnation of the Father in any manner is to change this most fundamental of all principles of Christianity, that God sent His Son, Jesus:

Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:29)

⁴²Therefore Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven’t come of myself, but he sent me. ⁴³ Why don’t you understand my speech? Because you can’t hear my word.” (John 8:42-43)

¹Jesus said these things, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, ‘Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may also glorify you; ² even as you gave him authority over all flesh, he will give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ. (John 17:1–3)

As you sent me into the world, even so I have sent them into the world. (John 17:18)

²¹that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me. ²²The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one; ²³I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them, even as you loved me. (John 17:21–23)

It is in the context of God’s one and only begotten and anointed son, and only in that context, that Jesus was born, lived, suffered on the cross for our sins, and was resurrected, and will continue forever. Moreover, it is only through belief in this teaching that we can be saved!

These Scriptures we’ve been looking at all help describe what it means for Jesus to be, as John wrote, “the Son of the Father in truth.”

So John is saying that Jesus is the Son of the Father in the biblically truemeaning of what God swore his son would be. Thus, the titles of father and son clearly refer to two distinct personalities (the man who was first sent and later resurrected and the God who sent him and later resurrected him) and are not to be taken in the false, untruemeaning of the man-made “blasphemous system” that redefines the Father and son as dual natures in one personality.

⁹Whoever transgresses and doesn’t remain in the teaching of the Anointed One, doesn’t have God. He who remains in the teaching, the same has both the Father and the Son. ¹⁰If anyone comes to you, and doesn’t bring this teaching, don’t receive him into your house, and don’t welcome him, ¹¹for he who welcomes him participates in his evil works. (2 John 9–11)

This verse has very similar wording to 1 John 2:22–23 and reemphasizes just how we should “treat” those who deny the true doctrine of Father and son. The verse says nothing to negate the understanding that father means father relationally and son means son relationally. So the directive is actually against the novel Oneness interpretation that redefines the meanings of the words father and son.

That which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us. Yes, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:5–7)

In these passages, John once again referred to the Father and His Son without making any mention of them being two natures of the person of Jesus the Anointed One. So John wrote expecting us to believe that the normal definitions of father and son were to apply to God and His Son, not as two natures of one person, but as two distinct personalities.

The above graphic conveys how ridiculous Modalism is in comparison to what the Scriptures say that God did through Christ. We begin with this Scripture:

My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. If anyone sins, we have a Counselor with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. (1 John 2:1)

John is not talking about an impersonal “human nature,” as in the Oneness view. Jesus the Anointed One is our Counselor to and with another personal entity (the Father) on our behalf.

⁹By this was God’s love revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us. ¹³By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God. (1 John 4:9–15)

Once again we have a passage that speaks of the Son as being personally distinct from the Father. It is in this context that Jesus is God’s only son.

As we’ve seen above, Oneness ministers like Mangun and Bernard want us to believe that “son” is some type of a code word for the impersonal “flesh” of Jesus Christ. But 1 John 4 refutes that idea. Let’s look at how ridiculous it would be if we were to assume that “son” is synonymous with “impersonal flesh”:

⁹By this was God’s love revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only [impersonal flesh] into the world that we might live through [the impersonal flesh]. ¹⁰In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his [impersonal flesh] as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us. ¹³By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the [impersonal flesh] as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵Whoever confesses that Jesus is the [impersonal flesh] of God, God remains in him, and he in God. (1 John 4:9–15)

As should be obvious, what we’ve inserted in brackets isn’t what John was saying, nor is it said like this anywhere else in the Bible. Rather, it is quite obvious that “flesh” is not synonymous with “son.” To the contrary, son and father are used by John in the well-known, and understood relationship between two distinct and separate personalities. Accordingly, to claim that “son” is in some manner a code word for the impersonal flesh of God’s personality is simply a lie.

Now, any Onenessian who realizes that John is referring to a human person in contradistinction to the God-the-Father person, has arrived at the Son of God doctrine as opposed to the Onenessian position. The position that Christ is a complete human person in his own right, distinct from his Father, is not the Oneness position. That’s because, as Bernard stated above, according to the Oneness position, without the Spirit of God in him, Jesus would have been lifeless flesh! So Onenessians believe that there is only one personality in Jesus—God the Father (who makes himself known through the impersonal flesh). Although they don’t typically use the word “impersonal” when saying Christ is the “flesh,” that is their smokescreen, which is being exposed in this work! When they say “flesh,” they mean an impersonal, lifeless flesh. Were they to say the opposite, that the Son has a personally human heart, mind, body, soul, and human spirit entirely distinct from the personal Spirit/Father, they would no longer be truly “Oneness.” That is because the core ideas of Onenessianism are that Jesus was an incarnation of the very person of God the Father and that he was conscious of being so. These are teachings the Bible never states.

Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:5)

Here then is a real issue. Overcoming the world is something special, something defined, and something that not everyone does. Specifically then, overcoming the world means believing that Jesus is the Son of God. It doesn’t say that overcoming the world is to come to understand or to gain an extrabiblical revelation that son means the impersonal human-nature half of a dual-natured individual.

Thus, to adopt the Gnostic, antichristian idea of a “dual nature” is the reverse: it is to be overcome by the world!

¹⁰He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who doesn’t believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. ¹¹The testimony is this, that God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹²He who has the Son has the life. He who doesn’t have God’s Son doesn’t have the life. (1 John 5:10–12)

If you read this passage as a Onenessian, you would think it means that “God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his impersonal flesh.” That is simply not what John said! And to imply that is what John meant in saying “flesh” is to tell a lie against John and the Scriptures of God that John penned. A lifeless Christ with God as his puppet master is simply not a true view of the biblical Son of God. Therefore, people who believe the “dual nature” doctrine make God out to be a liar; that is what John just said.

So then, Onenessians have committed a great travesty in attempting to redefine the word “son” to mean God’s “impersonal flesh.” The Bible is actually very clear that impersonal flesh is not alive apart from the spirit within that animates it. So James writes, “… the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:26).

And again, note what Jesus said in John 5:

²⁶For as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the [impersonal flesh] also to have life in himself. ²⁷He also gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a [impersonal flesh] of man. (John 5:26–27)

No, again it doesn’t fit. Jesus actually said these things in regard to himself as the Son, not as an impersonal flesh, as has been inserted to make the point. The word “son” is simply not synonymous with “flesh.” Using the Onenessian’s own code words (i.e., son = impersonal flesh, and father = personal spirit) shows that the Scriptures utterly refute their position.

The doctrine of “dual natures” in the individual personality of Jesus Christ was never, ever described or spelled out in the Scriptures. Yet, the teaching of Christ having two natures was one of the main doctrines by which antichristian Gnostic teachings replaced the biblical teaching of the Jewish Messiah.

By latching onto this deviation from apostolic teaching, whether knowingly or unknowingly, both Trinitarians and Onenessians have changed their foundation from the OT Schoolmaster and replaced it with a pagan form of Christ. The biblical teaching is that Jesus the Anointed One was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, a man approved of God, born by miraculous birth, but made of Mary, and who was obligated to be made in all things like us, his brothers. That is the biblical Jesus.

Trust in YHWH with all your heart, And don’t lean on your own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5)

Jumping to Conclusions versus “It is Written”: It is an antichristian doctrine to claim that “son” means the impersonal flesh and “father” refers to the personal spirit in two halves of a dual-natured Christ. In fact, Irenaeus said this teaching in particular was why John wrote against the antichristian Gnostics. So this doctrine isn’t just jumping to conclusions; it is also adopting Gnostic—that is, antichristian teaching. As Onenessians themselves have stated, their Christ is “not just an anointed man,” which is exactly opposite of asserting what the title Christ signifies. They are thus anti-christ-ians. Onenessians, like Trinitarians, are also Neo-Gnostics.

The OT Schoolmaster:If we are going to be true to Paul’s admonition to use the OT as the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, then we simply must accept the fact that the OT only describes and envisions a human Christ whom God declared to be His Son, not a hybrid God-man, and not an incarnation of a preexistent deity. The very word Messiah, from the OT, means an individual who has been anointed (officially authorized) by divine command, and thus does not ever refer to God Himself. No Jew ever conceived of Messiah as an incarnation of God, and no Scripture ever explained or clearly prophesied that the Messiah would be an incarnation of God. Therefore, we must conclude that the concept of Christ as an “incarnation” comes entirely from extrabiblical, pagan sources.

Most Jews… conceived [of] the Messiah as a man. We may indeed go a step further and say that no Jew at bottom imagined him otherwise; for even those who attached ideas of preexistence to him, and gave the Messiah a supernatural background, never advanced to speculations about assumption of the flesh, incarnation, two natures and the like. They only transferred in a specific manner to the Messiah the old idea of pre-terrestrial existence with God, universally current among the Jews. Before the creation of the world the Messiah was hidden with God, and, when the time is fulfilled, he makes his appearance… Nowhere do we find in Jewish writings a conception which advances beyond the notion that the Messiah is the man who is with God in heaven; and who will make his appearance at his own time. Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, Vol. I, Appendix I.

Teach No Other Doctrine: The “dual nature” doctrine of Onenessians and Trinitarians, which was first invented by the antichristian Gnostics, is definitely an adding to and taking away from a scriptural view of Christ.

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law. (Galatians 4:4, KJV)

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