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THE TESTIMONY OF THE BIBLE TO THE UNITY OF GOD by Hugh Hutton Stannus 1899
"Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation” (Articles of the Church of England)
On a question of such vital importance to the simplicity of belief and the purity of worship, as the UNITY of God, we go to the Bible. We learn in the clear, precise, and unequivocal language of its pages, that there is "ONE God and there is none other"; and this statement being in perfect accord with every chapter and verse of both Old and New Testament, we may fairly speak of it as a first principle of divine revelation. There are not only thousands of texts which teach this, but the entire complexion of the Bible sets forth the sole deity of ONE PERSON, called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and also repeatedly said to be “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
In the following and other texts God is styled “ONE”: “Jehovah our God is one Jehovah"-Deut. vi. 4. “In that day there shall be one Jehovah, and his name one”—Zech. xiv. 9. “Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created-Malach. ii. 10. “For one is your Father who is in heaven" -Matt. xxiii. 9. “There is none good but one, that is God”—Mark x. 18. “The Lord our God is one Lord”—Mark xii. 29. “There is one God, and there is none other”—Mark xii. 32. "Seeing it is one God who shall justify"-Rom. iii. 30. “There is none other God but one"-I. Cor. viii. 4. “To us there is but one God the Father"-I. Cor. viii. 6. “One God and Father of all”—Eph. iv. 6. “Thou believest there is one God; thou doest well”—James ii. 19.
It appears to us impossible for language to be more plain, precise, and emphatic as to the doctrine that God is one Being, one Person, one Mind, than the statements in the texts we have quoted. We may ask what words, what possible combination of words or sentences, could make more clear the strict unity of the One supreme, “the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God”. If the divine Being is not one person, but three persons in one God--if this is really a fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion,--we ask for a single sentence from any part of the Bible which says so. Dr. South admits, “It must be allowed that there is no such proposition as this, so that one and the same God is three different persons, to be found formally and in terms in the Sacred Writings”. [Considerations on the Trinity, p. 38. Professor Hey, of Cambridge (Lectures II. 25), says, “The term Trinity not being Scriptural, we cannot adhere to Scripture and yet use that”.]
There are other classes of texts confirmatory of this doctrine, the Unity of God. We are all aware of the emphatic and pronounced way in which the singular pronoun and verb are used of the divine Being:--"I am the Almighty God", Gen. xvii. 1; “I am that I am ", Exodus iii:14; “Do not I fill heaven and earth”, Jer. xxiii. 24.
Every page in the Bible abounds with this evidence in such forms of speech as “thine O Lord is the greatness”, "thine is the Kingdom”, &c., bearing repeated witness to the ever-repeated truth of both reason and revelation, that “Jehovah our God is ONE”.
There are, however, two or three texts in the Old Testament where the plural is found in relation to God: "Let us make man in our image"; "The man is « become as one of us”. John Calvin says of the text, “The man is become as one of us”: “From this place many Christians infer the doctrine of three persons in the “Godhead; but I fear the argument is not valid”. And Dr. Croft, a learned Trinitarian, says "Perhaps too much stress is laid upon the expression, 'Let us make man in our image.'" The plural is frequently applied to one only; "and the language of consultation is evidently used in condescension to human infirmity". [Sermon in 1786 in the Bampton Lectures. Similarly Dr. South, Grotius, Mercer, Limborch, Rosenmüller, and others.] In addition to these texts with the plural pronoun, it is only fair to add that in most places of the Hebrew scriptures the word translated God is Elohim. This is the plural form; El and Eloah being the singular. On this the late Dr. Campbell, of Aberdeen, says, “that Luther stood up for the Trinity "from the word Elohim, but Calvin refutes his argument, or quibble rather, at some length”. [Lectures on Systematic Theology, p. 489.] Professor Stuart admits the weakness of this argument in the following words:-"For “the sake of emphasis, the Hebrews commonly employed most of the words which signify Lord, God, &c., in the “plural form, but with the sense of the singular”. [Grammar of Hebrew Language, p. 180. Similarly Michaelis, Buxtorf, and others. We refer our readers to twelve pages of such admissions in “Wilson's Concessions of Trinitarians”, to which we are much indebted. If the argument from Elohim proved anything, it would prove, as in the ascription in Hebrews, chap i. 9, to Christ, “thy throne O ELOHIM,” that a plurality of divine persons existed in Christ.]
We could easily fill pages with the concessions of scholarly Trinitarians on these two points, that neither the word Elohim nor the few plural pronouns are to be regarded as evidence of a plurality of persons in the Godhead.
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Continuing the Scripture proof, there are numerous passages in which our heavenly Father is styled the “Holy One", the "Mighty One", the "High and Lofty One", &c. “I am Jehovah, the Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King”—Isa. xliii. 15. “I have not concealed the words of the Holy One”—Job vi. 10. “Unto thee will “I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel”—Ps. lxxi. 22. “For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity”—Isa. lvii. 15. “Therefore thus saith the “Lord Jehovah of Hosts, the Mighty One”—Isa. i. 24, &c. &c. Here we would remark that, while we find texts speaking of God as the Holy One, the Mighty One, &c., in the singular number, there is an entire absence from the Bible of phrases such as the Holy Three, the Mighty Three, and the like. This could not have been the case had the doctrine of “three Persons in one God” been revealed or known to the authors of the Sacred Volume. In view of these things Bishop Beveridge may well say that, “the Jews, though they had the law three thousand years, and the prophets above two thousand years, yet to this day they never could make this [the Trinity), an article of Faith”. [Private Thoughts, part ii. p. 66. Similarly Bishop Tostat, Bishop Blomfield, Archbishop Lawrence, and others.] It seems almost incredible that any intelligent person, who has carefully read the Bible, can claim it as a support of the doctrine of a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead. The authors of the Sacred Volume appear to have been totally unacquainted with such a view of the nature of God.
It may be said that “the term God includes the person of Jesus Christ and also the Holy Ghost”. This is an assumption not only without proof, but opposed to repeated statements of Christ himself, as well as of the sacred writers, who constantly speak of God as the “God and Father of Jesus Christ”. On the cross Christ said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me”—Matt. xxvii. 46. And afterwards he said, “I ascend unto my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God”—John xx. 17. He spoke of God as being distinct from himself as one person is from another. “I came from God"-John viii. 42. "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God”—Mark X. 18.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to suppose that the disciples as they walked and talked with our Saviour, thought they were holding converse with the Almighty God Himself. The late Archbishop Longley admits this:-“I should therefore be prepared to expect that the grand disclosure of Christ's divine nature would not be formally made to them till that period...the descent of the Holy Ghost”. [The Brothers Controversy, p. 54-57. Cardinal Newman (in his “Arians of the Fourth Century”, p. 55-a book written when he was a clergyman of the Established Church), says, “The most accurate consideration of the subject will lead us to acquiesce in the statement as a general truth, that the doctrines in question (viz., the Trinity and Incarnation] have never been learned merely from Scripture”. Dr. Bennet (“Discourse of the Trinity”, ch. viii. p. 94), says, “During the time of our Saviour's ministry, the disciples did not believe he was anything more than a mere man, conducted and assisted by the Spirit of God”, and “There is not in all the New Testament one passage which implies that the disciples during his ministry believed him to have any “divine nature". Bp. Burgess (“Plain Argument for the Divinity of Christ”, $ 6) admits, “The apostles appear not to have known that Christ was God till after his resurrection and ascension".]
They thought and spoke of Christ both before and after the day of Pentecost as "a man approved of God"—Acts ii. 22. He “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with "God and man"—Luke ii. 52; “He prayed to God” Luke vi. 12; “He had come from God and went to God.”-John xiii. 3; “God made him Lord and Christ”. Acts ii. 36; "the Head of Christ is God”—1 Cor. xi.3; “He is at the right hand of God” “God raised him from the dead”—Acts ii. 32; "has given him a name above every name”- Phil. ii. 9; and, finally, “He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father .. then shall the Son also himself be subject unto Him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all”—1 Cor. xv. 28. Every student of the New Testament knows that such passages as the above abound in its pages.
Evidence like this demonstrates that Christ is a person as distinct from God as the disciples were distinct from Christ, or from one another. A writer who carefully examined the New Testament says "that 1326 times the word God is applied to a person distinct from Jesus Christ". With a clearness and a force of language that cannot be surpassed, Christ, the brightest example of a religious life and a religious teacher, has taught that God is his God and Father, as He is our God and Father. [John xx. 17] Why need we doubt his word, or hold a theory of him, or of our heavenly Father, out of accord with all he taught? Perplexing, indeed, and constantly perplexing, must all the preceding texts be to those who hold that there are three persons of equal power and glory in the Godhead.
When we are told that there are two other persons of equal power and glory to God the Father (and He, the Father of Christ, was the only God known to the Jews), we are reminded of texts like the following:- “There is none like me”—Exod. ix. 14; “For who in the heaven can be compared unto Jehovah"?—Ps. lxxxix. 6; "For who is like unto Jehovah our God”?—Ps. cxiii. 5; 6. To whom then will ye liken God? ... or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One”—Isa. xl. 18-25; There is none like unto “Thee, Jehovah...none like unto Thee”—Jer. x. 6,7. Who is a God like unto Thee”?–Micah vii. 18. We need not quote further evidence that the God-inspired prophets had no idea of any other person or persons of equal power and glory to their Jehovah God. Also the whole tenor of the worship of the first apostles is as adverse to the Trinitarian theory as is anything in the Old Testament.
Yes, strictly corroborative of the views of patriarchs, prophets, and psalmist, as to the absolute Unity of God, is the teaching of Jesus Christ and his apostles; and they still further strengthen this doctrine by their instruction and example about prayer and worship. [Abp. Wake (in his work on the Catechism, p. 130) says that the Lord's Prayer teaches us “that we should pray to God only, and to Him as our Father through Jesus Christ our Lord”. Jeremy Taylor (Works xiii. 143) says, “That the Holy Ghost is God is nowhere said in Scripture. That the Holy Ghost is to be invocated is nowhere commanded; nor any example of its being done, recorded”.] Christ prayed to the Father, and taught his followers that "the “ true worshippers shall worship the Father", "for the Father seeketh such to worship Him "-John iv. 23. He says, “In that day ye shall ask me nothing"-John xvi. 23. There is no command or exhortation in the New Testament to worship any being other than “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Paul says, “I worship the God of my fathers”-Acts xxiv. 14. “I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”—Eph. iii. 14. This is the uniform language of the New Testament. Precept and example are plentifully found for this, and only this. Christ in his prayer addresses God as “the only true God” John xvii. 3. It is not until hundreds of years after apostolic times that we find in the Christian Church a prayer to "the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons and one God”. Christ himself, after his ascension, was never addressed by any of his disciples, except on occasions when, as to Stephen and to Paul, he was actually and visibly appearing to them.
In view of the importance of the Scriptural argument for the strict UNITY of God, we do not ask those who hold a different opinion from ourselves to produce many texts of Scripture which contain a clear statement of their doctrine of the Trinity; we ask for one text only. We are told by scholarly Trinitarians that there is no such text. Luther rightly says:-“The word Trinity is never found in the Divine Records”. [Postil Major, fol. 282; Confut. Rat. Latom, tom. ii. fol. 240.] Hooker says more than this:-“Our belief in the Trinity, the co-eternity of the Son of God with his Father, the proceeding of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, these with such other principal points are in Scripture nowhere to be found by express literal mention only deduced they are out of Scripture by collection” [Eccles. Polity, book i. § 14.] Pages could be filled with similar testimony from the works of scholarly Trinitarians. They virtually concede that it is a doctrine of inference and of church authority. And let it be remembered, this is done notwithstanding the express statements of the sacred volume; such as the following:--"Hear O “ Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah”. “I, even I, am HE, and there is no God with Me”. “Thou shalt have none other God but ME”. “In that day there shall be One Jehovah, and his name ONE”. “Jesus answered, the first of all the commandments is, Hear O Israel! the Lord our God is ONE Lord”. "This is life eternal that they might know THEE, THE ONLY TRUE GOD, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”. "There is ONE God, the Father”. "God is one". “When ye pray, say, Our Father’. “The true worshippers shall worship the Father”.
It has been said, and we endorse the statement, that so far as facts and arguments go, the question between the two theologies, the Trinitarian and the Unitarian, is as completely settled as the question between the two astronomies the old, which makes our earth the centre around which sun, moon, and stars revolve every twenty-four hours ; and the new, which makes our earth a lesser planet in our solar system, which is but one among countless systems of worlds. With the facts fairly presented and considered, it is no more possible to believe in the old theology than in the old astronomy. And all that we have to do is to set the facts fairly before the people.
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