#STRask - How Do You Know There Aren’t Three Distinct Divine Beings?

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Questions about how we know that God is one being instead of three distinct divine beings in perfect unity, and why God would give notable miracles to Oneness Pentecostals if their theology is truly heretical.   I see real distinctions between the persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Spirit interacting, speaking, and acting in different roles—but what specifically makes God one being instead of three distinct divine beings in perfect unity? Why would God give such notable miracles to Oneness Pentecostals if their theology is heretical? I can’t help but wonder if they’re seeing this kind of power because they know who Jesus really is.

This is Amy Hall. I'm here with Greg Kokel on the hashtag STRASC podcast. And Greg, today we have some questions about the Trinity. All right. So we're going to start with a question from Adam. When I read scripture, I see real distinction, father, son, and spirit interacting, speaking, acting in different roles. Right. What I can't quite resolve is this. What specifically makes this one being instead of three distinct divine beings in perfect unity? Polytheism does have negative connotation, but I feel like I'm last. lacking the words to describe the spiritual structure. I'm not trying to redefine it. I'm trying to understand what prevents that conclusion in a meaningful way beyond just restating the doctrine. Well, the simple answer is that Christianity and Judaism from which it sprang, and I mean, most technically, I would say that Christianity is Judaism, but not today's Judaism. It's what the flow of Judaism was intended to be, now extended to.

as Gentiles. And so that's why the new covenant is a Jewish covenant, Jeremiah 31, 31, and following, and we are beneficiaries of that. We have been grafted in, what Romans 10 or 11 or whatever that is. You know that better than I do. So the foundation of Judaism in terms of their theology is that there is one God, the Shima, the Lord, how's that goes from Isaiah 6, I think, but the Lord, God is one, all right? And so there is one God, and he's the only God. And when you read through the Old Testament, this becomes really clear. But this was also believed by the early Christians, and certainly Jesus promoted that as well. So, on the one hand, we have a foundational theology that at least at first blush is Unitarian.

There is one God. Now, it turns out, though, that in the New Testament revelation, this was not something that was revealed in the Old Testament, but you can find kind of hints of it once you see the more clear characterization of sorts in the New Testament. And in the New Testament, we have these statements by Jesus that make it clear, and also by those who wrote about him and who spoke about him, that he is God come down, Emmanuel God with us. Now, we can't make too much out of that name by itself because there are all kinds of Hebrew names that are combinations of L and, or something like that, that's an Emmanuel, for example, and they are talking about God, but they're not saying that this individual with this name is divine. But it's, when you see Emmanuel God, you know, God with us, it's because he was, because he was God who came down. And I think the passage that talks about that, excuse me, makes that clear. His beginnings were from everlasting,

you know, and Jesus said, before, Abraham was, I am, that's John chapter 8. And John writes, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God. All things came into being through him, and apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. So, well, this one that's called the word that became flesh, verse 14, dwelt among us, we beheld as glory. Well, this is the one who made it all there in the very first line of the story. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So we keep getting this additional information about the nature of God. And so what we discover in the New Testament is we are starting with a unitary and with one God. And that never is taken exception with. And so that's the foundation, not the distinct, distinctives between the Father, Son, and the Spirit that Adam, you pointed out. Yeah, there was a reason why God started with that revelation of. one God. Yeah, because there are lots of gods. And the view back then, it's called Hino Theism,

is the idea that everybody had their own God, and then when they fought against each other, that's how you find out whose God is the strongest, because the stronger God's people would prevail. And so early on, you have this kind of apparent battle between the gods, but it becomes clear later on that these other gods are false gods. And in the Revelation, this has stated explicitly. And so now by the time we have the time of Jesus, the revelation is clarified. There is one God. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's the God the Jews follow.

But then, all of a sudden, nobody can forgive sins but God alone. Jesus said, in order for you to know that the son of man, which is from Daniel 7, a reference to this divine being coming out of the clouds with power of great glory, has the power to forgive sins, I say to you, arise, take of your power. hell it, go home, he works a miracle. And then when he's on his trial, he's tried not for what he's done, but for who he says he was. Are you the Christ, the son of God? Claiming to be the Messiah is not blasphemy, but claiming to be the son of God is claiming yourself equality with God. And of course, these lines come up a lot in the Gospels. They want to kill Jesus, in part because of these

blasphemous claims. And they end up doing that in his crucifixion based on this claim to to be the Son of God, which is a claim to divinity. So especially with Jesus, it's very hard to miss, if you're paying attention, the connection between Jesus makes and the writers between Jesus and the God, who is, who now has come down in the person of Christ. But nevertheless, there is this distinction between the Father and the Son. That's why Jesus can talk to the Father. And so, and then you have these oddities about the spirit where now God is kind of dwelling in us, as Lewis puts it.

First, God's there, and then Jesus is somehow God, and now he's inside of us. And little by little, the early church kind of got a bigger picture of this from the things that were written by the apostles. And even Jesus said, the first and most ubiquitous characterization of Jesus in the early church was that Jesus was Lord. Now, this doesn't mean he's a nice guy. He's like aristocracy. It means that he is the Lord. The Lord is calling you. And that is also a reference to divinity as well.

So you have these things that where you've got this text saying there's one God and then Jesus is God. The Father is God. The Spirit is God. But they aren't three gods. They're distinct, but they're all God. And there's only one God. And so that's why I've said in the past that the Trinity is a solution, not a problem. If you're thinking in terms of the biblical record, what the Bible teaches.

And so we have Isaiah, I think it's Isaiah 55 or 45 or thereabouts. There's a whole bunch of lines in there that the Jehovah's Witnesses sees from. I think they get their name from there, you are my witnesses. and you have all these statements that were made about God uniquely. He is uniquely this, that, and the other thing. It turns out these are the exact same things that are said to be true of Jesus and also the spirit at other places. And that's why, you know, you have this doctrine that is inductively produced

as we read through the text and we get the pieces of it and put it together. Yeah, here's a here from Isaiah 46. for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is no one like me. And he talks about how I will not share my glory with another and I know of not any other God. There can only be one God. This is so explicit in the Old Testament

that even if we don't have, as Adam says, he's lacking the words to describe the spiritual structure, well, that's not surprising because God is unique. We have nothing to compare him to. We don't have anything we can look at and say, oh, this is what God is like. So it's not surprising that we can have trouble with that, but we can look at it and see that it explicitly says there is one God. So the two directions people go off in the wrong way is that they'll either, they'll say, well, I can't explain or understand how this works. So therefore, it must either be one God, and then you get modalism and things like that where people think the different persons are.

different manifestations of the same person. Or you go and you say, well, obviously there are three gods, and this is like the direction of Mormonism, and they go in that direction. But if you take one of those two directions, you have to deny the explicit statements of Scripture. That's it. Then you have a problem. And so the Trinity turns out to be a solution to that problem. And this is the way the early church and the fathers kind of figured out the word Trinity income was I think, end of the second century. So where's the Trinity in the Bible? Well, it doesn't say that explicitly. It's implicit. I don't want to say it's stronger than implicit. It's just, it makes these statements that are clear statements, they're explicit statements that, when gathered together

as a whole, and you have a high view of scripture. And you don't think, well, these guys are idiots or they're contradicting themselves. But if you have a high view of scripture, then you've got to deal with it, and this is what the early church fathers did. And in terms of a structure, I don't know, the creeds do a pretty good job. I mean, you have the, you've got the Calcedonian creed talking on Christology. He's fully God and fully man. He's one person, two natures. That's called the Calcedonian box or the Calcedonian formula. But this is what they were trying to do, is come up with a structure that at least conceptually allowed them to clarify what they meant. But if what you're trying to do is come up with a structure where you can kind of, okay, I got this in my mind, I got a picture of it.

Well, you're not going to do that. And this is why all these analogies don't work. People make all kinds of analogies. None of them work. And consequently, it just sends them into error. And when I teach on the Trinity, say, just leave the analogies behind. Just say it. There's only one God.

And I don't know who came up with this phraseology, but I think it's good. centers of consciousness in the one nature, in the nature of the one God, three persons. You don't even have to go that far. There's one God. There are three persons. Bada boom. Yeah. So let's take a question.

Hypostasis. Hypostas. You get into the Greek stuff and that was like whatever. But, yeah, one God, three persons. That's the structure. So that's from the direction of three persons. but how do I see there's one God? So now let's go the opposite direction.

This one comes from Robert. I have good oneness Pentecostal friends who keep experiencing many notable miracles worldwide. I've struggled and asked why God would give such miracles to people with bad theology. Now I'm wondering if they see this power because they know who Jesus really is. Help me sort this out. And let me just say, too, because I had a little conversation with him. And he's really struggling with this because he says he's seeing,

some convincing things, and he wants that kind of power in his life, and he wants that reality of the power in his life. Yeah, fair enough. Well, there's a couple ways to respond to this. Ultimately, the only definitive way of answering the question is going back to the text. That's the only definitive way. And notice, by the way, that you have one this Pentecostals who are unitarians. They believe there's one God, and that's it.

And any kind of distinctions between the Father, Son, and the Spirit are just diverse ways of describing the one God. They aren't separate persons. And so I guess they would be modalists of some sort that God presented himself at different times in different modes. Just like in a classic example is the, like a father who is also a husband, who is also employer or employee, whatever, they're different roles. So in different circumstances, they play different roles, but there's nothing different about the individual. It's still one individual, and that's the emphasis of oneness. So that is going to be answered by the text.

And if you're going to answer this by looking at miracles, you have competing theologies that produce miracles, because lots of miracles have been manifest by people who are Trinitarians. And so God reaching down and doing this work. So, okay, if miracle itself now is enough to validate a theology, and I think this played a role in the past in Jesus' life, I don't. think it's the same now. In fact, Jesus warned us in the Olivet discourse, Matthew 24, for example, that there would be many signs and wonders from false prophets that could mislead, if possible, even the elect. So that's hyperbole, I think. The elect can't be misled. This is clear from other passages, but it's like really convincing. So we shouldn't be surprised if alternate that theologies are capable of manifesting miracles.

Now, they both can't be true. Either the Trinity is the case or some kind of Unitarianism is the case, or some other option. But they can't both be true. And so if you're going by miraculous things, then you have miracles affirming contradictory theologies. So something's wrong there, obviously. This is why you have to go back to the text and answer the question from the text, especially since Jesus warned us of those who would be producing signs and wonders.

Incidentally, I think it's the same Greek words there in Matthew 24 that are used to describe Jesus attesting miracles. So that would be the way I'd approach it. You've got to go back to the text. What is the one this Pentecostal's justification for their view? John 1-3 makes it really clear that the one called the word who later took out flesh in Jesus is the uncreated creator. All things came into being through him, and apart from him, nothing.

Apart from his agency is what it means. That's the only way to make sense of this sentence. Apart from his agency, nothing came into being. That has come into being. In other words, the word never came into being. Everything that has come into being, the word created. It didn't create himself. That doesn't make any sense.

So that means this one called the Word, who is distinct from the Father. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was God, and the Word was God. Well, that's John 1-1. That's the first line of introduction to Jesus' life from John's perspective. And this is what he says. So he's putting Jesus way up there. I don't know how anybody can get around the clear sense of those statements, especially in John chapter 1 in the first few verses.

And there's more in Colossians, and I mean, John 8, all kinds. John 5, Jesus said, all the authority is given to me, and so that you would honor me even as you honor the father. You just read from Isaiah what, 40. Oh, I think it was 45? Yeah, or actually I said 45, and then I realized I got it wrong when you read it. Oh, maybe it was 43. In the 40s, but, you know, I will share my glory with no other. And here's Jesus making this statement.

So you got to deal with that. You can't just sluff it away. You can't just say, no, no, no, no, no, I'm going to close my eyes. You've got to make sense of that. And when others have tried to make sense of this, they've butchered it. They've come up with these kind of crazy ideas that do not fit the text in any way, shape, or form. So I think we are, we are by going back to the text, and this is true for regular Protestant, anybody, including oneness Pentecostals, you've got to make your case from the text. think they can. I know they can't. But nevertheless, they're holy to this field, which is an

ancient heresy was rejected by the early church. Right. My response, I have some notes here, Greg, and my response follows exactly what you said, but I can fill in a couple specific verses that support this. So my first thought was, even in the Bible, we see signs and wonders and powers that are not God. And what first came to mind was Revelation 13. 10 through 15, here's the middle part of this where the beast, it says, he performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given to him to perform in the presence of the beast. So note here, I'm not saying that his friend is the beast.

What I'm saying is that here's an example of signs that just because they were doing the signs, they were deceptive. That didn't mean that what they were saying was true. There are times when God allows other powers to work against him. And he does this. We know from 2nd Thessalonians 2, 8 through 12, in that case, he does it so that those who don't love the truth will follow the lie, and then they'll receive judgment for that.

So here's what 2nd Thessalonian says. The one who's coming is in accord with the activity of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason, God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth. So there's another example of where other powers are not signs of it being true. It's actually a sign of who is loving the truth enough to reject.

what they're saying. Yeah. And, of course, you said this, what about the Trinitarian miracles? So when you add up the fact that you have to competing miracles and you can't trust that miracles are pointing to the truth necessarily, as you said, this is why we don't judge by demonstrations of power. And we look at whether or not what that person is saying is contradicting what God has revealed about himself. And here's where we come to the two tests in scripture that are mentioned

specifically. One is in Deuteronomy 13, 1 through 3, where it says, if anyone comes to you with a sign and a wonder, but they're preaching a different God, do not believe them. And then in Galatians 1-8, it talks about if anyone comes to you with a different gospel other than what we've preached to, even if it's an angel, don't believe the angel. So here we have people who are an angel, who's powerful and a person who's doing signs and wonders. But the problem is they're not speaking what has already been revealed about God. They're contradicting what God has already revealed about himself. So both of these warnings, one in the Old Testament, one in the New Testament,

they assume that people will lead us astray by power and by glory. And we need to love the truth of what God has already revealed to protect us from these displays that could lead us astray. So that's really great, Amy. I'm anticipating an objection, and it just occurred to me, well, how do we know that you guys have the right signs and powers,

and we don't have the rights, or the Unitarian, the Oneness Pentecostals, don't have the right signs. And what I would appeal to is I would go back to the things that Jesus himself said, okay?

And we know that, because these words, signs and wonders attesting miracles, are used of Jesus. They were attesting miracles for him. Well, maybe that was the devil. Well, he cast demons out. In other words, we know that he was not in league with the devil. He was, it wasn't being falsely, he wasn't dealing on falsehood in a demonic miracle to demonstrate, to deceive us. He was, he was the one who took control of the demons. He cast the demons out.

And, of course, this is the same charge that was placed against him. He said, you're casting out demon, the leadership did. By the ruler of demons, he said, look at it. If Satan casts out Satan, his house is going to fall. A house divided against itself cannot stand, which Lincoln picked up on his second inaugural, you know. But there was a common sense point there. So we know that the attested miracles work for Jesus to display the truth. because the darkness was cast out by him.

And when we are following what Jesus says, then we know we have the truth. And any miracles that we see on our side is God working mercifully through the execution of truth. And on the other side, if there's a miracle, and it's contradictory to what Jesus claims about himself, and he's the one who casts out the powers of darkness, then those miracles representing that view are misleading,

miracles. Yeah. So in the case of Jesus, obviously the power and the miracles can be an indication of truth. It doesn't mean it means nothing. But like you said, then you look back at what has come before. So in the case of Jesus, we have so many, we have prophecies, we have the whole sacrificial system that points to Jesus. We have all sorts of things that make it clear that Jesus is the fulfillment, the natural fulfillment of those things. And then the power is what brought people's attention to him so that they could look and see that he was the one who was to come. So it doesn't—I'm not saying you disregard all those things, but you have to look at what came before.

It's interesting. John the Baptist says—what he's asked, who are you? He said, I am not the Messiah. I'm not the prophet, but I'm on the voice crying into wilderness, make straight the path of the Lord. Well, he's quoting from, I think Isaiah at that point, make straight the path of the Lord. Then he goes, he points to Jesus, says, there he is. behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Now, you say, he didn't call him Lord. No, but he said, I came to make straight the path of the Lord, and then this is the guy who I'm here to announce, who is the Lamb of God in addition to the Lord. So, I mean, it's inherent in his characterization there. So all of that fits together very cleanly, it seems to me. All right. Thank you, Adam and Robert.

We appreciate hearing from you. And you can always send us your question. You can go to X and just use the hashtag SDR ask. Or you can go to our website at STR.org, and all you have to do is look for our hashtag STR ask podcast page, and you'll find a link there. Let me add this. If you disagree with what we just said,

you're welcome to raise the issue and ask, well, how do you explain this or that or the other thing? So we don't have to, people don't have to agree with us in order to get on the show. We don't mind at all taking an exception with it. And actually, I know that there are, non-Trinitarians who listen to the show because I've interacted with them when they've sent emails and they've been very nice and pleasant about it and we've had some conversations.

So, yeah, we'd love to hear from you. All right, thank you so much for listening. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.