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Oneness Pentecostals These are exerts from the book 'Who is Jesus '? Answering Oneness Pentecostals attacks on the Trinity. (spiral notebook from Let Us Reason ministries Wahiawa HI 96786) Before reading: I don’t want to be perceived as someone angry nor vengeful; I reserve the right to be just as passionate and clever in my arguments as Oneness adherents are, but I do not want this to be misinterpreted as just an attack. I have painfully gone through numerous writings on their teachings , discussed it at great length with acquaintance’s and friends. I have also participated in 3 debates with them on salvation and the trinity. So I’m not a foreigner to their statements and understandings of the subjects. This book is mostly a rebuttal to D. Bernards book "the Oneness of God." Please read with an open heart and mind… Introduction The Christian church has become very familiar with anti-Trinitarian cults over the last 10-15 years. Jehovah's Witnesses who have over 8 million worldwide, Mormons who now have 10 million worldwide, Iglesia Ni christo, the Way International and numerous others are mostly enjoying growth. What has gone very much unnoticed by the church and is also enjoying growth is the Oneness Pentecostal / Apostolic church movement. Which now is the third largest anti-Trinitarian church in the world, having anywhere from 5-6 million or more adherents. Oneness Pentecostals are unique as far as being considered a cult. Much of what they say we could agree upon and they with us. Yet the very nature of God is at the center of this modern day controversy. Unlike other cults that deny the deity of Christ they affirm it, however they pour a new and unique way of defining it. Its not that this is something altogether new but actually something very ancient What has been revived is the ancient Sabellian heresy that God is singular in person. This emerged in the 2nd century as another heretical competitor with Gnosticism which the church was currently contending against. Sabellianism did away with the eternal Son, and had the eternal Spirit take on modes under which he was called the Father, then the Son , then the Spirit. Sabellias taught that God was a divine monad who revealed himself to mankind by projecting himself into the father and the Spirit. God being only one at a time, became another for different dispensations of time. In the different dispensations the Father was the creator and the lawgiver, the Son was the redeemer, and the Spirit was the giver of grace. In the third century this evolved into Monarchianism which was a more sophisticated form of modalism (Sabellianism) and the church which 75 years before had thought they put an end to this, had to once again confront the errors on Gods nature. To the defenders who engaged in the doctrinal challenges this was not just another battle, but the battle. These were not passing clouds that the wind would one day blow away. It was in their hands to stand firm and with everything they could counter both logically and Biblically in defining Gods nature.
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