Two Witnesses: The Legal Testimony of God the Father Regarding His Son (A Oneness Rebuttal)
I was in a conversation with a staunch Oneness preacher recently. He seems to believe they have the authority to redefine the meanings of words to justify the Oneness position. Let’s consider the case in light of the words of God the Father—and the words of His Son Jesus.
There are three times in the New Testament when God Himself audibly testified about Jesus Christ:
- At Jesus’ baptism – God identifies Jesus as His beloved Son.
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22; John 1:33–34 echoes it through John’s testimony) - At the Transfiguration – God again affirms Jesus as His Son and issues the only recorded command from heaven in the New Testament: “Listen to Him.”
“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35) - In Jerusalem before the crucifixion – God audibly responds to Jesus’ prayer.
“Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.” (John 12:28–30)
That’s it — these three.
Notice the pattern: each time God speaks audibly, it’s to identify and honor His Son before witnesses—never to identify Himself as the Son. On the third occasion, Jesus even clarifies for the crowd, “This voice has not come for my sake, but for yours.” God’s purpose was to affirm His Son publicly—the same consistent message in all three declarations.
That means these events carry extreme significance. Most importantly, in one of them God pronounced a commandment:
“Listen to him.” (Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35)
That is a commandment directly from the mouth of God—the only one given audibly by the Father in the New Testament. The significance is enormous. It recalls God’s promise in Deuteronomy 18:
[Moses said] “YHWH your God will raise up to you a prophet from the midst of you, of your brothers, like me; to him you shall listen; according to all that you desired of YHWH your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of YHWH my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I not die. YHWH said to me, They have well said that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a prophet from among their brothers, like you; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. It shall happen, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. (Deuteronomy 18:15–19)
God promised that Israel would no longer hear His voice directly but through a prophet like Moses, raised up from among their brothers. That promise came with a stern warning: whoever refused to listen to that prophet would be held accountable. At the Transfiguration, God reaffirmed that commandment—“Listen to Him.”
Now, listen to what Jesus says—what God commands us to hear—spoken in the same legal context of the two witnesses principle that God was establishing through those audible testimonies:
“15You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. 16Even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. 17It’s also written in your law that the testimony of two people is valid. 18I am one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me… 28Jesus therefore said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and I do nothing of myself, but as my Father taught me, I say these things. 29He who sent me is with me. The Father hasn’t left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” 30As he spoke these things, many believed in him.” (John 8:15–30)
Here Jesus makes it unmistakably clear: in the legally required testimony of two witnesses, He is one who testifies, and the Father is another who. That’s two distinct “whos,” not one person in two roles.
So the real question is, who will listen to Jesus? Those who obey God will both listen and hear. Those who are disobedient will not. And biblically, obedience comes before understanding; just ask Father Abraham, he’ll tell you. By faith, he went out not knowing! (Hebrews 11:8)
Let’s summarize the case biblically:
1. The Father Himself defines the relationship in personal terms, not in terms of “natures.” At both Jesus’ baptism (Matthew 3:17) and the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:5), the Father speaks directly and audibly, calling Jesus “My Son” and referring to Him with third-person pronouns (“He,” “Him,” “in whom”). That is a grammatical declaration of personhood distinction. God defines Father and Son by usage, not speculation. To override that usage is to contradict God’s own words and call God a liar. (“Let God be true and every man a liar.” Romans 3:4)
2. Jesus defines the same relationship in matching personal terms.
Jesus repeatedly says things like, “I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me” (John 8:16), “I came from the Father” (John 16:28), “The Father who sent Me” (John 8:16–18), and “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). He uses reciprocal pronouns (I, Me, He, Him), prepositions of distinction (from, with), and verbs of interaction (sent, taught, loved). All these show two centers of personal agency, not one person shifting roles.
3. Both speak as witnesses under the law.
Jesus invokes the law of two witnesses in John 8:17–18, identifying Himself and the Father who sent Him as the two “people” who testify. That would be invalid if they were the same person. Jesus grounds His authority in the Father’s distinct witness—exactly as Deuteronomy 19:15 requires. Oneness theology erases that witness pair. Oneness believers must decide who is credible: Jesus, or the teachers who claim He and the Father are the same person. Both cannot be true. The Bible says Jesus is the true witness—I’ll go with Him.
4. To redefine “Father” and “Son” is to disobey God’s command to listen to Jesus.
When the Father said, “This is My beloved Son… listen to Him,” He issued a direct command (Matthew 17:5). Oneness doctrine breaks that command by refusing to accept Jesus’ own definition of His relationship with His own God and Father. Substituting “divine nature vs. human nature” is not exegesis, and it’s not biblical revelation—it’s blatant disobedience. Oneness theology must sin against both the Father and the Son to maintain their imagination that one “person” can be his own Father and his own Son. They like to think they are clever by saying things like, “I’m a father and I’m a son and I’m one person,” as if they had justified their position. But that is circular reasoning; neither the Father nor the Son redefines the terms to apply to God being a father to Himself and a Son to Himself. Rather, they consistently maintain the personal distinctions that are inherent in every dictionary or lexicon definition of the words father and son.
5. Scripture repeatedly warns against altering God’s words.
“Add not to His words, lest you be found a liar.” (Proverbs 30:6)
“You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish from it.” (Deuteronomy 4:2)
“Why do you disobey the commandment of God because of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3)
Oneness redefinitions add to and subtract from the words “Father” and “Son,” turning relational terms between persons into abstract “natures.” That is philosophical revisionism that breaks God’s command to “listen to Him.”
The case against the Oneness doctrine is both biblically airtight and morally unavoidable:
– The Father and the Son both defined their relationship in personal, reciprocal terms, clearly distinguishing one another—just as we would expect in everyday usage, where father and son always describe a relationship between two distinct persons, not a relationship within one person.
– If Oneness believers wish to refute the unified testimony of God the Father and Jesus God’s Son by claiming that Father and Son describe one person being both his own Father and his own Son, then the burden is on them to produce the scriptures where God and Jesus reversed their testimony. No such scripture exists. We are therefore biblically justified—and morally right—to cast down such imaginations (2 Corinthians 10:5).
– Those terms are inviolably linked to distinct persons because they are divinely chosen, self-explanatory, and carry moral weight (Exodus 20:12; Mark 7:10–12).
– Redefining them is an act of rejection of the relationship they both described and, therefore, disobedience to the Father’s command to hear Jesus and a rejection of Jesus’ own testimony.
And yet Oneness adherents believe they have a better way of interpreting God and Jesus than God and Jesus themselves—as if their “special revelation” has given them greater anointing, higher authority, deeper understanding and superior terminology than both the Father and the Son speaking together were able to communicate, even to the point of correcting the very words used by God and His Christ!
If that isn’t spiritual arrogance, what is?
19“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, so that there may come times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, 20and that he may send Christ Jesus, who was ordained for you before, 21whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God spoke long ago by the mouth of his holy prophets. 22For Moses indeed said to the fathers, ‘The Lord God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him in all things whatever he says to you. 23It will be that every soul that will not listen to that prophet will be utterly destroyed from among the people.’” (Acts 3:19-23)
This Jesus the Apostles Openly Preached
Listen to how the apostles consistently preached Jesus to the lost, never once telling anyone they needed to believe Jesus was the Father incarnate, but clearly teaching something completely different, which they are more than capable of expressing in their own words:
Acts 2:22: “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God to you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him among you, even as you yourselves know.”
Acts 2:32–33: “This Jesus God raised up… Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this, which you now see and hear.”
Acts 2:36: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know certainly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Acts 3:13: “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate.”
Acts 3:26: “God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to you first, to bless you…”
Acts 4:10: “By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead…”
Acts 4:27: “For truly, in this city, against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed…”
Acts 5:30–31: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed… God exalted him with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior.”
Acts 7:56: “[Stephen] said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’”
Acts 10:38: “Even Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power… for God was with him.”
Acts 13:23: “From this man’s offspring, God has brought salvation to Israel according to his promise…”
Acts 13:33: “God has fulfilled the same to us their children, in that he raised up Jesus, as it is also written… ‘You are my Son. Today I have begotten you.’”
Acts 17:31: “[God] has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained…”
This is the Jesus the apostles preached. A man:
• Approved by God
• Anointed by God
• Sent by God
• Raised by God
• Exalted by God
• Ordained by God
They never preached Jesus as “God the Son,” “God in the flesh,” or “a preexistent angelic being.” The apostles always maintained the distinction: Jesus was not God, but God’s Son, God’s servant, and the man through whom God now rules and saves.
Here is the biblically acceptable confession of Christ, approved by Jesus as being revealed by the Father:
“16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 16:16–17)
“But the free gift isn’t like the trespass. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.” (Romans 5:15)
“22For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. 23But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then those who are Christ’s at his coming. 24Then the end comes, when he will deliver up the Kingdom to God the Father, when he will have abolished all rule and all authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy that will be abolished is death. 27For, “He put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when he says, “All things are put in subjection”, it is evident that he is excepted who subjected all things to him. 28When all things have been subjected to him, then the Son will also himself be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all.” (1 Corinthians 15:22-28)
