What Christadelphians Believe about
The Trinity
The idea of the Trinity is not one that is found in the Bible. Far from being part of the same being, God and Christ are quite separate. Consider the following verse, 1 Timothy 2:5: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus". A mediator is a go-between. For Christ to mediate between God and men he must be separate from God, just as he is separate from the individual people he mediates for; if Christ was part of God then this verse would be nonsense.
1 Corinthians 8:6 also speaks plainly of God and Christ as separate: "But to us there is but one God, the Father, ... and one Lord Jesus Christ". If God the Father and Christ were part of the one being, why would these words have been written? If they were part of the Trinity, why is there no reference to the Holy Spirit here? The only reasonable answer is that God, the Father is a totally separate being from Jesus Christ.
There are two passages from the New Testament that are often used to prove the Trinity, John 1 and Luke 1:35. In reality, both of these show that the Trinity does not exist.
John 1:18 plainly states that "No man hath seen God at any time". It does not say " No man hath seen God the Father" at any time, but that no man has seen GOD at any time. It is obvious from the Gospels that people saw Jesus: therefore Jesus cannot be God, or any part of God. The verse goes on to say "the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." Some other translations of this passage, which are based on other Greek manuscripts, have "the only begotten God" where the KJV has "only begotten Son". The Greek words for 'son' and 'god' in this context are very similar, and it seems likely that 'son' becoming 'god' was a simple slip of the pen when the early manuscripts were copied. The phrase 'only begotten God' is also at odds with the doctrine of the Trinity. Something that is begotten has a definite beginning and a cornerstone of the Trinity is that 'God the Son' has always existed.
"And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:35) Let us suppose that this passage does speak of the Trinity. It would seem then that the Holy Spirit is the Father of Christ, which would give a trinity of "God the Father & Holy Spirit, God the Son, and God the Redundant"! The more logical interpretation of this passage is that the Holy Spirit is simply the power of God.
Christ stands out in the Bible as being a sinless individual; this is a truly great achievement for a man. Sin is simply acting contrary to the will of God - therefore for Christ's sinlessness to be an achievement he must not be part of God.
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God, Jesus Christ, and the Crucifixion