Once again, the main purpose of these studies is to counter three main Trinitarian lies…

Lie #1. That the Trinity is based on Jewish views of a multi-person deity.
Lie #2. That there were “no” trinities whatsoever in the pagan world from which they derived their dogma, and there are no scholars that believe there was any pagan sources from which the Trinity was derived.
Lie #3. That the Trinity is “spiritual” and couldn’t have been conceived of by the natural mind.

In this part, we are going to look at additional modern theologians and scholars that admit and/or confirm that the Trinity is a byproduct of Platonism. And that the ECTD’s got their ideas from philosophy and not from Judaism.

Here is one of those scholars that Trinitarians want us to believe doesn’t exist…

“The Neoplatonists imagined a primal unity that was the origin of all beings. This was the One, an unknowable source of all goodness…and life. From the superabundance of its goodness…the One overflowed and descended to establish the next spiritual level of existence, the Nous, which means intelligence and intuitive knowledge. The Nous, imitating and following the way established by the One, also overflowed from the abundance of its intellect to create the next lower spiritual level of the universe, the Soul…Just as the One and the Nous had, the Soul also overflowed…and the created universe emerged…
“…The Neoplatonic system…cohered by participation…Each lower level continued to have its root in the One and to participate in the life and being of the One…
“Christianity became in the end a theological child of Neoplatonism—most of the early theologians who framed the doctrinal basis for orthodox Christianity, especially regarding the incarnation, the Trinity, and the contemplative life, were influenced by this philosophy.
“The Cappadocian fathers…Basil of Caesarea (330–379), Gregory of Nyssa (330–395) and Gregory of Nazianzus (330–390)… developed theological explanations of the Christian Trinity, the relationship of the Father to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, and the two natures of Christ (both human and divine)…Their articulation of the way the human and divine natures of Christ coexisted in one person, and of the manner in which the emanation of Son from Father…could take place…is thoroughly informed by Neoplatonic philosophy…
“It is virtually impossible to understand the Nicene Creed without first understanding the philosophy of late antiquity. They are completely fused and interrelated.” Richard Valantasis, The Beliefnet Guide to Gnosticism and Other Vanished Christianities, (New York: Three Leaves Press/Doubleday, 2006), 132-136.

According to this scholar, Neoplatonic philosophy influenced the Trinitarian Nicene Creed resulting in a “theological child.”

Question: what do you call a “child” that is born out of wedlock, especially when one of the “parents” is wed to someone else? While the word “illegitimate” is a nice way to put it, the word “bastard”, although vulgar, is just as valid. Well, this is where we get the picture of Jesus accusing his people of spiritual harlotry in Revelation when he says, “I will kill her children with death.” That certainly doesn’t sound fitting for the “nice” way of putting it. He isn’t talking about “legitimate” children, but “illegitimate ones.

So, here we have a “professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at the Iliff School of Theology,” explaining concepts of God, basically saying that Christianity became a bastardized child of an unholy union of Christians with the gods of pagan philosophy. Okay, he didn’t say it that crassly, but biblically that is what he described. Sugar-coating doesn’t change the truth that harlotry has taken place. If Jesus can be so blunt, so should we. Because any less and the event is made to sound harmless and benign, and possibly even beneficial; when it is clearly not.

Notice that he didn’t say that to understand the Nicene Creed you need to understand the Bible or Jewish mysticism, or Jewish contemplations of “two powers in heaven.” No, that isn’t the source at all, pagan philosophy is. This philosophy specifically is what first influenced Trinitarians to view God as a compound “multi-personal deity”. This isn’t the Bible speaking. There is absolutely no language in the Bible for deific hierarchies. But there are certainly enough verses that refute that idea (1 Cor. 12:11, Eph. 1:11, etc.) That idea of deific hierarchies comes strictly from non-biblical, pagan sources. In this case, it is Neoplatonic philosophy speaking. And, as we will see in our brief examination of Irenaeus, the earlier non-Trinitarian assembly rebuked just such thinking. On the other hand, the anti-Christian Gnostics adopted precisely that thinking before the Trinitarians did. Then Nicene Trinitarianism embraced this Gnostic and Neoplatonic thinking completely. That thinking is what many Christians falsely call “orthodox” (right belief) today.

What God said through his prophets were things like these…

“Yahweh, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb says: “I am Yahweh, who makes all things; who alone stretches out the heavens; who spreads out the earth by myself” (Isaiah 44:24).

“I, Yahweh…there is no God else besides me, a just God and a Savior; there is no one besides me” (Isaiah 45:21).

“Thus shall you say to them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens” (Jeremiah 10:11).

This is who we should be listening to, not the philosophers or others who want to make these words of God into a lie.

There are many other scholars who admit of the adoption of pagan philosophy by earlier so-called fathers such as Justin Martyr and Tertullian.

“The future lay with the program first announced by Justin Martyr, by which the Church would make common cause with Platonic metaphysics and Stoic ethics, while rejecting pagan myth and cult as a demonic, superstitious, counterfeit religion propagated by evil powers…” Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, 69-70.

This Trinitarian historian claimed that Justin Martyr was the first to make common cause with Platonism; that is, to attempt to reconcile and merge philosophical thought with Christian doctrines. And notice that “metaphysics” (having to do with “substance”, meaning something that can be understood by the senses) was one of the major concepts involved.

We have seen that Trinitarians credit Justin as the first to introduce a philosophic view of God. But not really, because they also admit the Gnostics were the first to do so. Ironically, those who rejected Justin’s innovation are accused by modern Trinitarians of being the ones creating a new controversy!

“Another controversy broke out at Rome during the episcopate of Victor… This was the so-called ‘Monarchian controversy’…[which] originated in a revolt against the Logos theology of Justin the apologist. Justin had boldly spoken of the divine Logos as ‘another God’ beside the Father, qualified by the gloss ‘other, I mean in number, not in will.’ In arguing against the Hellenized Jews who held that the divine Logos is distinct from God only in the refined sense in which one can distinguish in thought between sun and sunlight, Justin had urged that the analogy of one torch being lit from another was a much more satisfactory picture because it did justice to the independence (later theology, from Origen onwards, would have used the technical term hypostasis) of the Logos. Such language was disturbing. One of the central issues in conflict with Gnosticism had been the question whether there is more than one ultimate first principle. The orthodox had insisted that there is no first principle other than God the Creator, no coequal…but a single monarchia. Justin’s language appeared to prejudice this affirmation and to be insufficiently protected against the accusation of ditheism.” Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, 85-86.

Please note carefully that Justin argued against Hellenized Jews (not strictly monotheistic “orthodox” or conservative ones) who “held that the divine Logos is distinct from God.” This demonstrates several things. First, Justin clearly did not adopt the idea of “a multi-personal deity” from those Jews, nor was he claiming to. And secondly, those Jews themselves had been polluted (“Hellenized”) by the doctrines of the gods of the people around them! And thirdly, both pagan philosophers and ECTD’s used carnal substances, naturally discerned, and not biblical explanations, by which to both understand and explain how the one true God could be “multi-personal”.

Next, let’s look at what Justin had to say and see if he claimed to have gotten the idea of a “multi-personal deity” from the Jews or not. He wrote…

“And all the Jews even now teach that the nameless God spake to Moses; whence the Spirit of prophecy, accusing them by Isaiah the prophet mentioned above, said ‘The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know Me, and My people do not understand’ (Isaiah 1:3). And Jesus the Christ, because the Jews knew not what the Father was, and what the Son, in like manner accused them; and himself said, ‘No one knoweth the Father, but the Son; nor the Son, but the Father, and they to whom the Son revealeth Him.’” (Matthew 11:27) Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 63

So, Justin himself testifies to us, contrary to the false, unsubstantiated claims of modern Trinitarians, that he was not getting his ideas from Jews. Rather, he accused all Jews of not knowing God. And he did that specifically so he could interject the pagan, philosophical view of multiple persons. Which explains why his “language was disturbing” to the majority of Christians he was trying to persuade otherwise.

Furthermore, there are many problems with Justin’s position. First, it is doubtful that Isaiah originally wrote that God said the word “Me” in the passage. “Me” is only found in Greek Septuagint manuscripts, but it isn’t found in the Hebrew text. Taken in its context, the passage clearly refutes Justin’s limited conclusion that this meant no Jew knew what the Father and Son were. In the next verse, 4, Isaiah says that these disobedient people had “forsaken Yahweh.” That is to say, they had left, abandoned, or departed from Yahweh (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon). They would first have had to be with Yahweh before being able to depart from Yahweh. So Yahweh isn’t saying through Isaiah that the disobedient Israelites “didn’t know Me, period.” He is saying they departed from serving Him. We can deduce the reason was they didn’t understand or accept His ways. Instead, they preferred the ways of the gods round about them. Ironically, Justin was teaching people to conceive of God in the way of the philosophers, and their gods. So, Justin was doing exactly what Isaiah was prophesying against!

Second, Isaiah also says in 1:9, “Yahweh of Armies had left to us a very small remnant”. Therefore, contrary to Justin’s generalization of all Jews, at least some of Israel even then still did know and understand. Since most Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah, Trinitarians feel justified in rejecting the Jewish view of monotheism. What no ancient Jew ever understood was God as a Trinity. Justin simply used false logic based on nothing more than human reasoning.

Obviously, the 120 Jews who obediently waited for God’s promise on the day of Pentecost were not disobedient. The early assembly was purely Jewish until Acts 10. By this time there were thousands of Christians, all of whom were Jewish. In fact, the first real controversy of the assembly was in dealing with believing Gentiles. Now Justin is saying that no Jews understood God! This is an incredible deception! Again, Jesus himself testified that the Jews knew what they worshipped (John 4:22). The ones Jesus said didn’t know the Father were the ones who he called children of the devil (John 8:42-44), which also aligns with these philosopher-Christians for going after other gods.

Finally, Justin falsely applies Jesus’ words from Matthew 11:27 to his Trinitarian understanding. However, there is a quote from Isaiah that refutes Justin’s interpretation of Isaiah. Justin adamantly claimed that Isaiah accused “all the Jews” of “not knowing Me” in reference to Yahweh. To the contrary, Isaiah wrote:

“You are my witnesses, says Yahweh, and my servant whom I have chosen; that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am He: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am Yahweh; and besides me there is no savior. I have declared, and I have saved, and I have shown; and there was no strange god among you: therefore you are my witnesses, says Yahweh, and I am God” (Isaiah 43:10–12).

Yahweh says He chose Israel to be His witnesses; therefore, they are His witnesses. In order for Justin to introduce other witnesses (i.e., Plato and Numenius), Justin said that all of Israel did not know Yahweh (“Me”). Thus, Justin begins his argument by refuting Yahweh Himself! “Let God be true and every man a liar (Rom. 3:4). And unfortunately, today’s Trinitarians applaud and esteem Justin for making God a liar. But he isn’t just refuting Yahweh, he is also refuting Jesus who said that the Jew’s God was the Father, thus not Jesus as Justin falsely claims…

“Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is our God” (John 8:54).

If Jesus had been the “God” that spoke to them, then Jesus should have said so, but he didn’t. He said the Father was the one they say is their God. And rightly so.

In our next quote from Justin, he goes on to tell us that all that God said in the Old Testament was actually spoken by Jesus Christ. He reasons that since Jesus is God’s Word, then he is the one who was speaking as Yahweh. Let’s assume for a moment that Justin was correct, and it was Jesus who was speaking in Isaiah 43:10–12 (above). In context, (according to Justin) Jesus-as-Yahweh said that the Jews were his witness, and they knew and understood him! If Justin’s conclusion is correct, it would have been Jesus the son as Yahweh who was revealing Himself to the Jews, and they understood him. Justin doesn’t see the contradiction he has created between Isa. 43:10-12 and Matt. 11:27 since if it was Jesus in Isaiah then it would have been Jesus who could have revealed the Father back then to the Jews. Neither Yahweh nor Jesus affirm Justin’s irrational conclusion; it is just Justin trying to make the Jews look bad so he can replace their God with the multi-person god of the pagan philosopher Numenius.

But let’s get back to what Yahweh was really saying through Isaiah. Yahweh was clearly saying that these Jews knew and understood Him in contrast to some other group of people who did not know. In Isaiah 45:20, the other group is revealed: “you…have escaped from the nations: they have no knowledge who carry the wood of their engraved image, and pray to a god that can’t save” (Isaiah 45:20). It was the nations from which Israel had escaped that had no knowledge! This is exactly contrary to what Justin wants to interject. Justin is saying instead that God revealed Himself to Plato in a way that surpassed the understanding of Moses and the prophets, (since Moses and the prophets must surely be included in the group known as “all the Jews”). In reality, the one who spoke to Isaiah, whom Justin claims was God the Son, clearly refuted Justin’s conclusions on several levels!

This is how Justin Martyr introduced pagan philosophical concepts of God in place of the Jewish one and only God. He could only accomplish this under the false pretense that all the Jews did not know or understand their God. Again, Justin is clearly denouncing the false, made-up idea of modern Trinitarians that he got his idea of a multi-personal deity from the Jews! All Trinitarians who count Justin Martyr as one of their earliest proofs are simply following Justin in his error. “If the blind lead the blind,” Jesus tells us, “both will fall into the ditch” (Matthew 15:14).

Another thing you will see Justin do is to remove God the Father from direct communion with His creation. This concept is, again, totally in line with Numenius’s and Plotinus’s Neoplatonic descriptions of God, and contrary to the Jewish view. For Justin, God the Father has taken a complete and utter backstage to God the Son. This is how he introduces the pagan doctrine of “transcendence” which is something the antichristian Gnostics also held. According to Justin, God the Son has always stood between God the Father and all of creation. It is no longer the one monotheistic Yahweh, God of the Israelites, that created the heavens and earth. He tells us it was not God the Father who spoke to and through the prophets. It is no longer the one God the Father who appeared at various times, such as speaking through an angel at a burning bush. This is how Justin introduces and interjects the philosophical transcendent First Cause as God the Father, and the philosophical mediating logos as God the Son. This yet again proves that Justin got his understanding of God from the pagans, not from the Jews. Remember, in the Bible, “there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5), so this “Jesus” of Justin’s is indeed “another Jesus”…

“Now the Word of God is His Son, as we have before said. And he is called Angel and Apostle; for he declares whatever we ought to know… They have it expressly affirmed in the writings of Moses, ‘And the angel of God spake to Moses in a flame of fire in a bush, and said, I am that I am, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,’ yet maintain that he who said this was the Father and Creator of the universe… The Jews, accordingly, being throughout of opinion that it was the Father of the universe who spake to Moses, though he who spake to him was indeed the Son of God, who is called both Angel and Apostle, are justly charged, both by the Spirit of prophecy and by Christ himself, with knowing neither the Father nor the Son. For they who affirm that the Son is the Father, are proved neither to have become acquainted with the Father, nor to know that the Father of the universe has a Son; who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God. And of old he appeared in the shape of fire and in the likeness of an angel to Moses and to the other prophets; but now in the times of your reign, having, as we before said, become Man by a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, for the salvation of those who believe on him, he endured both to be set at nought and to suffer, that by dying and rising again he might conquer death…” Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 63

Note that in Justin’s theology “God the Son” can be heard and can make himself visible to people; but God the Father has not and cannot.

It is written, “By faith we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which are visible” (Hebrews 11:3).

By claiming that the “imaginary” preexistent son of God is or was “visible”, Justin is negating this statement in Hebrews 11:3. Thus, Justin negated the Biblical maxim that “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Thus Justin’s doctrine is not of the faith that is defined in the Bible. According to the Bible, God is invisible; and Jesus, someone who has been seen, heard, and touched, reveals him. That is what the scripture teaches.

“¹That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life ² (and the life was revealed, and we have seen, and testify, and declare to you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was revealed to us); ³that 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 1:1-3).

“No one has seen God at any time. The only born Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him” (John 1:18).

“By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27).

“For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse” (Romans 1:20).

God is invisible, but He is made known (understood and perceived) by things that are made. This is a clear scripture explaining why sometimes it “appears” that God is seen. Jesus is one of those things that are made who shows the invisible things of God, even God’s everlasting power and divinity. And this is how Jesus gets confused with God by Incarnationists. But not by those of us who understand the truth that “God is not a man…neither the son of man…” (Numbers 23:19).

These scriptures are also evidence that Jesus, being a “visible” entity, is not made of the “invisible substance” of God as Justin contends. Justin was simply guilty of interpreting the scriptures through philosophical metaphysics.

Thus, the fact that Justin followed the example of his contemporary anti-Christian Gnostics is beyond refuting. The Gnostics taught a different, additional god than the God of the Jews and Jesus; Justin did also. The Gnostics adopted and adapted the philosophic concept of a transcendent, impassible, and unnamable God who never personally spoke to His people, not even the prophets; Justin did also. The Gnostics conceived of God’s word as a distinct personality from the Father within the Godhead (not merely an attribute of God Himself having a word); Justin did also. There are basically only two things missing in Justin’s theology from among the extreme Gnostic ideas. First, he has shed the endless generation of mythological gods. Second, he has shed the Gnostic idea that the creator was unaware of being a lesser god.

Clearly, Justin’s “God the Son” is not actually coequal in substance to his God the Father. The platonic view of the logos as a mediating deific being is what enabled Justin’s construction of his “God the Son.”

Therefore, the Trinity is not merely “like” the pagan logos. The Trinitarian logos is the pagan logos and is 180 degrees antithetical to biblical faith. As I will demonstrate shortly, for John, logos simply meant “word.” But for Justin, logos carries all the pagan definitions of the pagan “universal principle.” This is where Trinitarianism left the biblical Jesus and adopted a pagan deity as their Deliverer. In effect, the Trinity doctrine is a spiritual repeat of Israelite idolatry. While Moses was receiving God’s law, his brother Aaron made a golden calf for the people to worship. Interestingly, they claimed that the calf was Yahweh that led them out of Egypt. They made the calf out of the gold they had brought with them from Egypt. In the same way, Justin fashioned his Trinity god out of the conceptual material he brought with him out of philosophy, and he called the pagan logos, “Jesus the Deliverer.” The Trinity is not merely similar or coincidental with the pagan logos. The Trinitarian logos is the pagan logos and only gives lip service to the biblical Jesus.

So, the confessions of the ECTD’s themselves totally testify against the Trinitarian contention that it was Jewish mysticism or “spirituality” or even the Bible that informed the early framers of the Trinity. This is a cover up, and a deception on the part of Trinitarians. “No lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21) and “all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone” (Revelation 21:8).

The opposite is faith. We who hold that God is one do so by believing that God’s first commandment is true. And it is true in the context which Jesus framed it…one He.

Thus, Justin introduced a different Christ than the apostles preached. In doing so, he also changed the message of the gospel. Christ’s gospel was that the kingdom of God was at hand, and all men should believe on him, repent, and be born again to enter the kingdom in obedience to Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection (Matt. 16:24, 1 Cor. 15:1-4, Acts 2:38, etc.). This was what Christ, as a human, typified for us all. Justin’s gospel changed this to God himself becoming man in order that man could become like one of his plural gods. Justin’s idea was not new, however. All he really did was redefine the anti-Christian Gnostic view to make it acceptable to minds that thought in philosophic terms.

Regarding Justin Martyr, Marian Hillar’s work is pertinent here.

“Justin’s Triadic Formula
“When Justin mentions that Christians believe in the Triad…he refers directly to the discussion among his contemporary Middle Platonists. We have testimony of this discussion preserved in the fragments of the philosophical writings of Numenius of Apamea in Syria (fl. ca 150 C.E.) (see *footnote below)… Numenius…influenced the Christian apologist, Justin, the Greek philosophers Plotinus and Porphyry, and later Eusebius of Caesarea…
“Numenius: Immediate Source of Justin’s Theology
“Numenius…developed further such concepts of Greek philosophical tradition (as One, Demiurge, Father, Logos, Mother, World Soul) into a theological system by introducing explicitly a system of hierarchical cosmic entities, two or three Gods…
“Eusebius praised Numenius for deriving his ideas from Plato and Moses. Numenius himself declared Plato to be just ‘Moses who speaks the Attic language.’ There is a complete correlation between the two systems, that of Justin and that of Numenius…
“Conclusions
“Justin’s theology derived from the Hellenistic interpretation of the scriptural material and constitutes the first step leading to Nicaea.
“According to Justin, there are three (or two) separate divine entities popularly worshiped by the Christians: God the Father whose substance is God’s Pneuma, the second Pneuma is the Logos or the Son of God, and the third Pneuma is the Holy or Prophetic Pneuma… These terms were hypostatized and interpreted in the light of Greek philosophical and theological speculations.
“…Justin…insisted on the subordination of these two Pneumas to the First Pneuma, God the Father. Thus there is no trace of the post-Nicaean Trinity in Justin’s writings understood as the triune divinity, but a hierarchically organized triad as he believed in only one God, God the Father. The Logos and the Holy Pneuma had subordinate ranks, being in the second and third place, respectively, and entirely dependent on the will of God the Father.” Marian Hillar, Numenius and Greek Sources of Justin’s Theology, https://docslib.org/doc/4688873/numenius-and-greek-sources-of-justins-theology-marian-hillar-center-for-philosophy-and-socinian-studies-houston-tx
*Footnote: Numénius Fragments, texte établi et traduit par Édouard des Places (Paris: Société d’Édition Les Belles Lettres, 1973); The Neoplatonic Writings of Numenius, collected and translated from the Greek by Kenneth Guthrie with forward by Michael Wagner ([1917] Lawrence, KS: Selene Books, rpt. 1987).

Note that Hillar concludes that Justin’s Greek Hellenistic ideas are the first step toward Nicaea, that is, the Trinity. However, in Justin there is “no trace of the post-Nicaean Trinity.” This means that Justin did not believe in a coequal Trinity. That formulation would come later on and be addressed in the conflicts instigated by Athanasius and culminating in the Council of Nicaea and other Councils.

Justin believed in a Neoplatonic-influenced Trinity that looked much like that of Arius (because Arius looked back to Justin’s ideas). If Justin had lived in the fourth century or later, Nicene Trinitarians would have excommunicated him as a heretic just as with Arius. Yet all of today’s Nicene Trinitarians justify him because he represents “the first step toward Nicaea”. The Trinitarian contention that Nicaea merely “codified” what was always believed is simply a lie and a deception on the part of the Trinitarians.

What “the first step toward Nicaea” really means is that Justin was the first non-Gnostic Christian to interpret the scriptures through the lenses of pagan philosophy. But Justin was clearly a subordinationist (like Arius would be). Justin did not believe in an eternal son.

This explains why Justin didn’t wear the garments of OT priests, he literally wore the garments of pagan philosophers to identify with them (not Jews). He didn’t get the idea of a plurality of persons in the godhead from Jewish mysticism or the Jewish heresy of “two powers in heaven”, he got the idea directly from his contemporary Neoplatonist Numenius (mid-2nd century CE).

That is what going after “the gods of the peoples who are around you” (Deut. 6:14) looks like, exactly.

Merging pagan and biblical thought may sound like a good thing to the human mind, but it is utterly contemptible according to the Scriptures.

“Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? Or what communion has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever? What agreement has a temple of God with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, ‘I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people.’
“Therefore, ‘Come out from among them, And be separate,’ says the Lord, ‘Touch no unclean thing. I will receive you. I will be to you a Father. You will be to me sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty.
“Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1).

God’s word is entirely against what Justin Martyr did in joining light and darkness. The Bible condemns teaching other doctrines (1 Timothy 1:3) and being spoiled by the traditions of men after philosophy (Colossians 2:8) in particular. Justin was a very disobedient teacher.

So, Justin Martyr was the first non-Gnostic Christian with an “Arian” view of Christ. And he got his understanding from philosophy, not from the Bible, Jesus, the apostles, or Jews.

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