(Excerpted from Chapter 1 of Mystery of the Ages)
Notice Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God ….” This originally was written by Moses as God inspired him. Moses wrote in Hebrew. The Hebrew word translated “God” is Elohim—a noun or name, plural in form, but normally singular in grammatical usage. It is the same sort of word as family, church, group—one family consisting of two or more members—one church composed of many members—one group of several persons.
It is referring to precisely the same Persons, making up or composing the one God, as we found in John 1:1—the Word and God—and each of those two Persons is God.
In other words God is now a Family of Persons, composed so far of only the two—God the Father and Christ the Son. But if the Holy Spirit of God dwells in someone, and he is being led by God’s Spirit, then he is a begotten son of God (Romans 8:14). But, at the time of Christ’s return to Earth in supreme power and glory to set up the Kingdom of God, restoring the government of God, abolished by Lucifer, then all being filled and led by God’s Spirit shall become born sons of God. The God Family will then rule all nations with the government of God restored!
The trinity doctrine limits God to a supposed three persons. It destroys the very gospel of Jesus Christ! His gospel is the good news of the now soon-coming Kingdom of God—the only hope of this world and its mixed-up mankind!
The trinity doctrine, by contrast, is the doctrine of the great false religion called in Revelation 17:5: “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.”
By that doctrine, along with others, Satan has deceived all traditional Christianity.
The Trinity Doctrine
The generally accepted teaching of traditional Christianity is that God is a trinity—God in three persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit (which is often called a “Ghost”). How did this “trinity” doctrine enter traditional Christianity?
It most emphatically did not come from the Bible. Revelation 12:9 says that all nations have been deceived by Satan the devil. How, then, did the wily Satan introduce this doctrine into “Christianity”?
The history of this question is interesting. It seems incredible that a being like Satan not only could have deceived the whole world, but also “Christianity”—the very religion bearing Christ’s name and supposed to be His true religion. Yet, paradoxically, Satan did!
He did it through his great false church, started a.d. 33 by Simon the Sorcerer, described in the eighth chapter of the book of Acts as the leader of the Babylonian mystery religion in Samaria. It is recorded in 2 Kings 17:23-24 that Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, who had invaded and conquered the northern kingdom—the kingdom of Israel—moved the people out of their land of Samaria, north of Jerusalem, and moved into that land people of the Babylonish mystery religion from the provinces of Babylon. They were, of course, Gentiles. They inhabited this area of northern Palestine in the time of Christ. The Jews of Judea in Christ’s time would have nothing to do with them, calling them contemptuously “dogs.” They still adhered to this pagan Babylonish mystery religion in the first century.
In a.d. 33, two years after Jesus Christ from heaven founded the Church of God on that day of Pentecost, the deacon Philip, who later became an evangelist, went down to Samaria and preached Christ’s gospel. This Simon the Sorcerer came with the crowd to hear him.
Simon had bewitched the people of that country, and they followed him as their leader in the Babylonian mystery religion “from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God” (Acts 8:10).
When the people believed Philip, preaching the Kingdom of God, they were baptized, and this Simon managed to be baptized with them.
Then Simon came to the apostles Peter and John, offering money as a bribe, asking them to give him the power to lay hands on people and have them receive the Holy Spirit. Peter rebuked him strongly. But Simon proclaimed himself a Christian apostle, nevertheless, and called the pagan Babylonian mystery religion “Christianity.” He accepted the doctrine of “grace” for the forgiveness of sin (which the pagan religions had never had), but turned grace into license to disobey God (Jude 4). He aspired to turn his pagan religion, under the name “Christianity,” into a universal religion, to gain thereby the political rule of the world.
Simon, the “Pater” (Peter) of his counterfeit religion, did not accomplish this in his lifetime. But succeeding leaders, with the headquarters moved to Rome, did, later, gain political control over the Roman Empire and its medieval successor, called “The Holy Roman Empire.” This empire is in the process of again being resurrected in Europe now!
Counterfeit Gospel
By the sixth decade of the first century, much of the Middle East had turned from the true gospel to a counterfeit (Galatians 1:6-7). As late as the a.d. 90s, the Apostle John was still living. He wrote the book of Revelation on the Isle of Patmos.
A little later the church started by Simon in a.d. 33, was trying to turn the true Christian Passover (Christ had changed its form from that of sacrificial lambs to unleavened bread and wine) into a Babylonian ceremony, now called, in English, “Easter”—named after the goddess Astarte or Ishtar (pronounced “Easter” in some Semitic dialects).
After the death of the Apostle John, a disciple of his, Polycarp, waged a controversy over the Passover-Easter question with the bishop of Rome, by then leader of the church started by Simon.
Still later, another disciple of Christ’s true Christianity, Polycrates, waged a still hotter controversy over the same Passover-Easter question with another bishop of Rome. This theological battle was called the Quartodeciman Controversy. Polycrates contended, as Jesus and the original apostles taught, that the Passover should be observed in the new Christian form introduced by Jesus and confirmed by the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 11), using unleavened bread and wine—instead of sacrificing a lamb—on the eve of Nisan 14 (first month in the sacred calendar, occurring in the spring). But the Rome church insisted that it be observed on a Sunday.
About the same time another controversy was raging, between a Dr. Arius, of Alexandria, a Christian leader who died a.d. 336, and other bishops, over calling God a trinity. Dr. Arius stoutly opposed the trinity doctrine, but introduced errors of his own.
In a.d. 325, the Emperor Constantine called the Nicene Council to settle these controversies. Constantine was not then yet a “Christian,” but as political ruler he assumed control. The Council approved both the Easter-Sunday doctrine and the trinity. Constantine, then civil ruler, made it a law. But he was not able to make it TRUTH!
Satan has deceived the entire world in regard to the very nature of who and what God is—as well as of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Also of the government of God, based on the spiritual law of God. And further, of what and why man is, what salvation is, how it is received, what is the true gospel, what and why the Church is and what of the future!
What Is God Like?
The word trinity is not used anywhere in the Bible. I am going to make completely clear, as we proceed, God has not limited Himself to a “trinity.” The surprising truth, once understood, is the most wonderful revelation the human mind could receive or contain!
The very first idea or teaching about God being a trinity began in the latter half of the second century—a hundred years after most of the New Testament had been written. The counterfeit Christianity spawned by Simon the Sorcerer was promoting it vigorously along with the pagan Easter. But the true Church of God vigorously resisted it. The controversy became so violent it threatened the peace of the world. The then pagan Emperor Constantine called this Nicene Council to settle it. The Roman emperor’s supporters greatly outnumbered the persecuted true Church of God.
You will find a prophecy of these two churches in the book of Revelation. In the 12th chapter is the prophecy of the true Church of God, greatly persecuted. Jesus called it “the little flock.” In the 17th chapter you will find the prophecy of the counterfeit church—a very great church, named by God “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots” (verse 5). She lined up with and sat astride the political governments. The whole world will gasp in wonder (verse 8) when this religio-political medieval “Holy Roman Empire” is brought back to life! It is now in the preliminary stages of forming, starting from the European Common Market!
False Scripture Added
There is only one small passage in the Authorized Version of the Bible that is generally used by trinity adherents to support the trinity doctrine. This passage is found in 1 John 5:7-8, and is bracketed in the following quotation: “For there are three that bear record [in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth], the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” The bracketed words were added by editors to the Latin Vulgate translation probably in the early fourth century. They do not appear in any of the older Greek manuscripts nor in other modern English translations. They were added to the Latin Vulgate during the heat of the controversy between Rome and Dr. Arius and God’s people.
Bible commentaries explain that these words were never written in the Apostle John’s manuscript or any existing early copies of it. The Apostle John in his three epistles and the book of Revelation speaks of “the Father, and … Son” (1 John 1:3), but never of “the Father and the Word,” except in this uninspired part of 1 John 5:7-8.
There was a real reason why the archdeceiver Satan wanted that spurious verse added in the Latin Vulgate from which it crept into the Authorized Version. The trinity doctrine completely does away with the gospel of Jesus Christ. His gospel is the message He brought mankind from God the Father, the good news of the coming Kingdom of God! That is the one thing above all Satan wants to defeat.
One world famous evangelist said: “When I first began to study the Bible years ago, the doctrine of the trinity was one of the most complex problems I had to encounter. I have never fully resolved it, for it contains an aspect of mystery. Though I do not totally understand it to this day, I accept it as a revelation of God. … To explain and illustrate the trinity is one of the most difficult assignments to a Christian.”
Much is also made of the fact that in a number of places in modern translations the masculine pronoun he is carelessly used in connection with the Holy Spirit. But not always—sometimes the Holy Spirit is referred to as it in these very same translations. For example, in the passage describing the first coming of the Holy Spirit for the founding of the Church of God on that memorable day of Pentecost.
Holy Spirit Poured Out
The Holy Spirit came from heaven, audibly, sounding like a mighty wind, “and it [the Holy Spirit] filled all the house where they were sitting.” Next, the Holy Spirit appeared—was visibly seen—manifested—“And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire, and it [the Holy Spirit in the form of divided tongues] sat upon each of them” (Acts 2:2-3). In verse 18, Peter is quoting from the Prophet Joel: “I will pour out … of my Spirit ….” The Holy Spirit, like water or a fluid, can be “poured out.” Can you pour out a person from one into another—as from God into those assembled there? John 7:37-39: “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy [Spirit] was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)”
Again in Acts 10:45, “… on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy [Spirit].”
Summary
Finally, in briefest summary: God is a Family composed at present of the two Persons of John 1:1-4, but with many thousands, already begotten by God’s Spirit, in God’s true Church, soon to be born into that divine Family at Christ’s return to Earth. Jesus Christ, by His resurrection, was born a divine Son of God (Romans 1:4)—the first so born into the God Family (Romans 8:29).
Both God and Christ are composed of spirit, formed and shaped as a human person, but with eyes like flames of fire and faces bright as the sun in its full strength!
God is Creator of all that exists. Both God and the Word (who became Christ) have existed eternally and before all else. From them emanates the Spirit of God, by which God is omnipresent and omniscient. God the Father is the divine Father of the God Family, into which truly converted Christians shall be born.