What the Apostles Taught

Start with a question Everyone has the same four Gospels in front of them. Yet Christians read them differently. Jesus once asked a lawyer, “What is written in the law? how readest thou?” (Luke 10:26). The question isn’t only what is written. It’s how do you read it?

Here is a simple way to see the difference.

The left column is what’s written. The right column is how it’s often restated. We will test the right column against the apostles, who knew Jesus and wrote the New Testament.

Did they believe in one God? Yes, clearly: Romans 3:30; 1 Corinthians 8:4; Ephesians 4:6; 1 Timothy 2:5; James 2:19. But as in Lesson 10, a person of any of the three views can say Amen. So the real question is: whom did they mean?

Paul In 1 Corinthians 8:4 he said ‘there is no other God but One.’ In verse 6 he tells us who this one God is: “But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.” (1 Corinthians 8:6)

When Paul wrote “one God,” what did he mean by it? Did he mean a triune God, or was he referring to one, singular God, God the Father? Paul was not uncertain about who the one God of the Bible is. It is the Father, the Source of all things. He repeatedly brought this point out: “That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 15:6) “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” (Ephesians 4:6) “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 1:3) God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Again, notice: “And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” (1 Corinthians 15:28) Jesus will be subject unto the Father! Why? So that God, the Father, might be all in all. Why? Because the Father is the Source of all things, including the life of His Son.

James and Peter “Therewith bless we God, even the Father.” (James 3:9) “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1 Peter 1:3) Same pattern. “God” is identified as the Father, and as the God of Jesus.

John “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:9) According to John, who is God? It is He who had a Son to send, the Father of Jesus.

Clearly, John is speaking about God the Father (the source of all things) who has a Son.

The order of the words matters. “Son of God” names a relationship; it identifies whose Son He is. “God the Son” introduces another god whose title is Son. It is the difference between saying “the dog of John” and “John the dog.” The first tells you who owns the dog; the second changes the very nature of the subject. Scripture consistently uses “Son of God.” It never uses “God the Son.”

A verse that can be read two ways “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” (1 John 5:20)

Who is “the true God” at the end of this verse? Here are the two readings.

1. Reading 1: “This” refers to “him that is true,” the Father, who has a Son named Jesus Christ. This matches John 17:3, where Jesus calls the Father “the only true God.”
2. Reading 2: “This” refers to the nearest person named, “his Son Jesus Christ.” Many Trinitarian writers read it this way, and it is grammatically possible.

The grammar allows either reading, so John himself settles it. In his Gospel John records Jesus calling the Father “the only true God” (John 17:3), and in his letters John speaks of “the Father” and “the Son” as two (1 John 2:22–23; 2 John 9). John uses “the true God” of the Father, so the first reading is the one that agrees with John.

The Father and the Son cannot be separated Look at how John 17:3 is built. “Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” The distinction between the Father and the Son is part of the sentence itself. Take either one out and the sentence collapses. John says the same thing in his letters:

“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.” (1 John 2:22–23) “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.” (2 John 1:9)

He that has the Son has the Father also. If the one God were the three together, who would John mean by “both the Father and the Son”? Whom does he tell us we “have”?

Two Beings, one doctrine “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.” (2 John 9) Who is “God” in the first sentence? Two Beings are mentioned in the first sentence—Christ and God. John is explaining that if you reject one, you reject the other. In the next sentence he presents the opposite scenario—that if you have one, you also have the other—and here he identifies God as the Father, and Christ as the Son.

The Father as Source, the Son as Channel The apostles describe two divine Beings, but they describe different roles: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.” (Hebrews 1:1–2) “God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 3:9) “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible... all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” (Colossians 1:15–17)

The Father is the Source (“of whom are all things”). The Son is the Channel (“by whom are all things”). And the Son is “before all things.”