That’s it. That’s the challenge. It’s just that simple.

The Bible says it “thoroughly furnishes us unto all good works,” and to “teach no other doctrine,” So, if your Oneness belief is the true, biblical explanation about God and His son Jesus Christ, then this should be a relatively easy question to answer. If not, then it would be impossible to meet this challenge. On the other hand, this challenge is completely doable for the position called “the Son of God” doctrine.

I was a Oneness believer, teacher of, and advocate for, the Oneness doctrine for over 25 years. Now, however, I believe instead exactly what Peter proclaimed Jesus to be in Matthew 16:16, and preached Jesus to be on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2:22-36, and what was always preached about Jesus in the book of Acts. Onenessians cannot say that. The fact of the matter is that what Peter confessed, proclaimed, and explained expresses different details than what Onenessians preach and teach.

What happened to me that opened my eyes and changed my mind was, beginning in 2004, for about 8 years, I did some very extensive research into the historic development of the Trinity doctrine. What I didn’t expect to find was that the Oneness doctrine was just as much of a later “doctrinal development” as the Trinity was. There are two major factors that I attribute most to my rejection of “Oneness.”

First, I began to really “hear” and listen to what Jesus explained of himself. I found out that we Oneness believers had been “proof-texting” our way in defending Oneness. “Proof-texting” means treating the Bible like the devil does when he tempted Jesus by quoting Psalms 91:11-12 as “proof” that God would save Jesus if he were to jump off a pinnacle to prove he was the son of God. If you’ve ever heard Trinitarians argue from scriptures they claim support the Trinity doctrine, you have seen, and know what “proof-texting” looks like. It is quoting a scripture, or scriptures, and then jumping to conclusions about what you want it to mean, but which the text itself doesn’t say or mean. For example, when Trinitarians quote Matthew 28:19 and claim it teaches the Trinity, that is proof-texting and reading into the text what it doesn’t say, teach, or mean. It is also “creating a false dilemma” because they basically insist that their Trinity doctrine is the ‘only’ doctrine that can be concluded from Jesus’ words regarding “Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” And that’s what I found I was doing as a Onenessian to “prove” Oneness: jumping to conclusions, creating false dilemmas, and claiming the Bible meant what it never clearly taught.

When I started listening to Jesus, and letting him explain himself, I really heard him explain that…

“The Son can do nothing of himself” (John 5:19)

And again…

“I can of myself do nothing.” (John 5:30); and again, “I do nothing of myself.” (John 8:28)

Up to that point, I had believed, that Jesus was the person, the self, of God incarnate. So, how could God, even incarnate as a man, claim he could do nothing of “himself”? Being a strong Oneness advocate, I knew the pat Oneness answer; I was taught that he was a dual natured individual and he was speaking from his flesh. But that isn’t what he said or explained here. That isn’t what the Bible ever says or teaches anywhere. And then I made another disturbing discovery.

Secondly, I found out that the early Christians taught that the dual nature doctrine was blasphemous. This is from Irenaeus writing in the mid-second century, just one generation removed from the Apostle John (meaning, he was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a close disciple of John’s). He wrote…

“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 /strong>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 Christ, 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

As you can read, according to Irenaeus, the dual nature doctrine of the Gnostics was THE reason John wrote to expose and condemn antichristians. As a Onenessian, no one had ever told me that.

That realization was very disturbing to me, as it should be to you. Why did John warn us? Did he write that to someone else but not to you and me? Are we above such temptations and deceptions? No, you and I are not immune because we have the Holy Ghost; John wrote to warn Holy Ghost filled people, and those who reject John’s warning are those who willingly embrace what John wrote against.

I could find absolutely NO scripture that openly or clearly taught the “dual nature” doctrine. If you are honest with what the Bible says, you will not find anywhere that Jesus is explained as a dual-natured individual. Such a conclusion is purely an imagination of men invented to justify a precluded belief. It is read into the text of the Bible, by supposition and jumping to conclusions, and not at all read from or stated in the text.

I found myself having to choose between the traditions of men that were developed long after the apostles, which I had been taught and believed, or the faith once delivered by Jesus, Peter, and the Apostles. So, I chose to go with what the Bible names, proclaims, confesses, and explains, rather than traditions of men that the apostles themselves never articulated or preached. It wasn’t an easy decision. I was very well grounded in the “proof-texts” of Onenessianism. And now I find myself not only wanting to help Trinitarians see the error of Trinitarianism, but now my heart also aches for those who have bought into the Oneness deception.

Of course, it isn’t any easier to persuade Onenessians to challenge their understanding than it is to persuade Trinitarians to challenge theirs. All I can do is preach and teach the word, and anyone who has a love for the truth, at some point, will have that truth revealed to them by God the Father (Matthew 16:17).

Seen on a meme: “It’s hard to hear God’s voice when you’ve already decided what you want Him to say.”

So, again, here is my challenge to the advocates of the Oneness doctrine:

Where is the Oneness doctrine Named, Proclaimed, Confessed, AND Explained in the Bible? In other words, please find and quote the scriptures that in and of themselves openly and clearly and purposely explain and describe the specific details and distinctive elements of Oneness beliefs, without jumping to conclusions, without creating false dilemmas, and without negating what is openly and clearly explained in the Bible.

This challenge should be relatively easy. Anyone who claims to be a preacher or teacher of the Bible ought to readily know how to explain what they believe from the Bible, especially the most important doctrine of all in the Bible, which is the relationship between God and His son Jesus Christ.

The Bible says that the scriptures “thoroughly furnishes us to every good work” (2 Tim. 3:17), and that we should “teach no other doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:3), and that we should be “established in the present truth” (2 Peter 1:12). We are even told to, “learn not to think beyond the things which are written, that none of you be puffed up against one another (1 Corinthians 4:6)

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