Kaleef K. Karim and Younes Al Maghribi

It is common among Christians that tend to think and believe that the trinity is all over in the Bible. They insist in the belief of the trinity of three co-equal, co-eternal Persons in the One God is the true faith. Many very well-known Bible Scholars do not think Jesus is God in a trinitarian sense, in the New Testament. Many distinguished scholars maintain that the doctrine of trinity is not taught anywhere in the Bible. Let’s now focus and respond to the verses Christians use in defence for their trinitarian belief. We will respond to two verses, which are Matthew 28:19 and 1 John 5:7. Before proceeding any further, let’s first define what the Christian Trinity is.

Related Article:
Trinity: Examining Authenticity Of Matthew 28:19

– Father fully God
– Son (Jesus) fully God
– Holy Spirit fully God

The Father is not the Son, nor is the Son the Father, and the Spirit is not the Son, nor is the Spirit the Father. They are all distinct from each other. Yet there are not three Gods, but One God (this is according to trinitarian Christians). Any human with a sound/sane mind, who is looking for the truth, will see that the Christian doctrine of the trinity is a contradiction to what God Almighty stated in the Old Testament. This kind of doctrine is never taught by Jesus or his disciples and thus contradicts everything what Jesus taught. If Jesus (p) really taught the doctrine of the trinity, how come there is not one verse where he states:- “God is One but in three persons” i.e., something along the lines of, “Father is God Son is God and the Holy Spirit is also God?” Anyone reading throughout the New Testament will see Jesus saying: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Jesus taught Monotheism not Polytheism.

King James 2000 Bible (©2003) Matthew 28:19 Go you therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 28:19 is quoted by Christians as evidence for the Trinity. However it is an interpolation into the Text. Respected Bible scholars say that the formula was an insertion, and that it originally was “Go and make disciples of all nations in my name.” Matthew 28:19 is the only verse in the entire New Testament with the “Trinity” formula.” All other verses point to baptism being performed in the Name of Jesus alone. Take for example Apostle Peter in Acts. He always baptised in the name of Jesus. See the following verses:

Acts 2:38 – Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 8:16 – For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Acts 10:48 – So Peter ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus the Messiah. Then they asked him to stay there for several days.

If Matthew 28:19 is true, genuine and Jesus did command his disciples to baptize ”in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Why would Peter go against Jesus’s command and Baptize only in His name? Well the answer lies in the Text. The formula of the “Father Son and Holy Spirit” is not part of the original text of Matthew. How do we know it is not part of Text? Well let us turn to the respected Scholars.

Eusebius (260 – 339 CE) was a Roman Christian historian and is regarded as a well learned Christian scholar. He became the Bishop of Caesarea in 314 CE. He quotes many verses in his works, and Matthew 28:19 is one of them. 17 times in his works prior to Nicaea, Eusebius quotes Matthew 28:19 as “Go and make disciples of all nations in my name” without mentioning the Trinity baptism formula.

1. George H. Gilbert Quotes Mr Conybeare and says the following on Matthew 28:19:

“There is important external evidence against the existence of this formula in manuscripts current before the time of Eusebius, and various recent writers have urge that the practice of baptism in Acts and Epistles of Paul is utterly incompatible with the view that Jesus commanded his disciples to baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (E.g., Martineau, The Seat of Authority in religion, page 515; Percy Gardener, Exploratio Evangilica, page 445; Sabatier, Religions of Authority and Religion of Spirit, page 52; Harnack, History of Dogma Volume 1, 79, note).”

George H. Gilbert then says:

“It is obvious that the location of this word between ‘Father’ and ‘Holy Spirit’ is virtually a claim that the Son stands on the same level with them. The position takes him up, as it were, into the very center of the Deity. But to this claim the words of Jesus in our oldest sources stand opposed. Unique and divine as is their claim regarding the character of the Master a claim like that of the Baptismal formula, but in the clearest, most unambiguous terms assert what is diametrically opposed to the implication of that passage. They assert manhood; they deny attributes of deity (e.g., omniscience and absolute goodness). Therefore it is impossible to hold that the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels can have spoken the words of the Baptismal formula” [1]

2. James Moffatt’s NT Translation in his footnote (page 64) says the following words:

“….it may be that this (Trinitarian) formula, so far as the fullness of its expression is concerned, is a reflection of the (Catholic) liturgical usage established later in the primitive (Catholic) community, It will be remembered that Acts speaks of baptizing “in the name of Jesus, cf. Acts 1:5….”

3. Bultmann says:

“As to the rite of baptism, it was normally consummated as a bath in which the one receiving baptism completely submerged, and if possible in flowing water as the allusions of Acts 8:36, Heb. 10:22, Barn. 11:11 permit us to gather, and as Did. 7:1-3 specifically says. According to the last passage, (the apocryphal Catholic Didache) suffices in case of the need if water is three times poured [false Catholic sprinkling doctrine] on the head. The one baptizing names over the one being baptized the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,” later expanded (changed) to the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.”[2]

4. Principal A. J. Grieve says:

“The command to baptize into the threefold name is late doctrinal expansion. In place of the words ‘baptizing… spirit’ we should probably read simply ‘into my name’, i.e. (turn the nations) to Christianity, or ‘in my name’” [3]

5. Former Priest Tom Harpur:

“All but the most conservative scholars agree that at least the latter part of this command [Triune part of Matthew 28:19] was inserted later. The formula occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, and we know from the only evidence available [the rest of the New Testament] that the earliest Church did not baptize people using these words (“in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”) baptism was “into” or “in” the name of Jesus alone. Thus it is argued that the verse originally read “baptizing them in My Name” and then was expanded [changed] to work in the [later Catholic Trinitarian] dogma. In fact, the first view put forward by German critical scholars as well as the Unitarians in the nineteenth century, was stated as the accepted position of mainline scholarship as long ago as 1919, when Peake’s commentary was first published: “The Church of the first days (AD 33) did not observe this world-wide (Trinitarian) commandment, even if they knew it. The command to baptize into the threefold [Trinity] name is a late doctrinal expansion. …“[4]

We have referenced five quotes and all of them agree that Matthew 28:19 formula of the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” is not the original. The book of Acts is enough to throw away the trinitarian false Doctrine once and for all. We also gave Eusebius who read the verse as “Go and make disciples of all nations in my name”.

This verse, 1 John 5:7 we are going to examine, is the biggest forgery ever. Bible translators of past centuries were so zealous to find support for their belief in the triune God formula in the New Testament that they added it. Here is the passage:

King James 2000 Bible 1 John 5:7 For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit: and these three are one.

Let’s now bring forth evidence from the experts. Let’s see what their views are on 1 John 5:7 i.e. is it a genuine verse or is it a forgery?

Bruce Metzger says:

“Among the criticism levelled at Erasmus one of the most serious appeared to be the charge of Stunica, one of the editors of Ximenes Complutensian Polyglot, that his Text lacked part of the Final chapter of 1: John, namely the Trinitarian statement concerning Father, the word and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth’ (1 John v.7-8 King James Version). Erasmus replied that he had NOT found any Greek manuscripts containing these words... Erasmus promised that he would insert the Comma Johanneum, as it is called in future editions if a single Greek manuscripts could be found that contained the passage… As it now appears, the Greek manuscripts had probably been written in Oxford about 1520 by a Franciscan friar named Froy (or Roy), who took the disputed words from the Latin Vulgate…. Among the thousands of Greek manuscripts of the New Testament examined since time of Erasmus only three others are known to contain this spurious passage They are Greg. 88, a twelfth-century manuscript which has the comma written in the margin in a seventeenth-century hand; Tisch. W 110, which is a sixteenth-century manuscript copy of the Complutensian Polyglot Greek Text… The Comma probably originated as a piece of allegorical exegesis of the three witnesses and may have been written as a marginal gloss in a Latin Manuscripts of 1 John, whence it was taken into the text of the Old Latin Bible during the fifth century. The passage does NOT appear in Manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate before about A.D. 800.” [5]

Ezra Abbott:

“…I will here simply remind the reader that Erasmus introduced the passage into his third edition of the Greek Testament in 1522 abd Luther died in 1546…. Luther after quoting the passage of three heavenly witnesses, remarks:- ‘These words are not found in the Greek Bibles; but it seems as if this verse had been inserted by the Orthodox against the Arians….. We may observe finally that the other early reformers and friends of Luther generally rejected the passage; so Zwingli, Bullinger, Ecolampadius, Bugenhagen (Rickli, ubi supra, pp. 35, 36). So, also, according to Kettner (Histpria dicti Johannei… 1 John v. 7 etc., 1713, cap. 13), Melanchthon, Crucigner), Justus Jonas, Forester, Aurogallus. (see Semler, Hist. U krit. Sammulugun uber 1 John v. 7, 1. 248.) Bugenhagen, as we have seen, was especially strenuous against it; see his Exposito Jona, 1550, cited by Rickli, p. 39. It was also omitted in the Celebrated Lati version of the Bible by Leo Judae, Pellicanus, Peter Cholin, Rudolph Gualther, and others printed at Zürich in 1543. Fol., and commonly called the Zurich Bible or version Tigurina. A Marginal note explains the reason for its rejection…. To trace the history of this gross corruption of the Text in modern Translations, Catechisms and confessions of Faith, especially in the Greek church since the sixteenth century, and in modern editions of some ancient versions, as Peshito Syriac, Armenian and Slavonic, might be interesting and instructive, psychologically as well as critically; but there is no room for it here.” [6]

Brooke F. Westcott gave a long essay on 1 John 5:7 he then made the following Summary on 1 John 5:7

“…THE WORDS ARE NOT FOUND:
(1) In any independent Greek MS (more than 180 MSS and 50 Lectionaries are quoted). Both the late MS which contain it have unquestionably been modified by the Latin Vulgate.
(2) In any independent Greek writer. The very few Greek writers who make use of the words derived their knowledge of them from the Latin (not in Ir Cl.Al Orig Did Athan Bas Greg. Naz Cyr.Al).
(3) In any Latin Father earlier than Victor Vitensis or Vigilius Tapsensis (not in Tert Cypr Hil Ambr Hier Aug Leo).(4) Not in any ancient version except the Latin; and it was not found in the Old Latin in its early form (Tert Cypr Aug), or (b) in the Vulgate as issued by Jerome (Codd. Am fuld or (c) as revised by Alcuin (Cod. Vallicell).” [7]

Pulpit Commentary:

“Verse 7. – For those who bear witness are three, and thus constitute full legal testimony (Deuteronomy 17:6; Deuteronomy 19:15; Matthew 18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1). It will be assumed here, without discussion, that the remainder of this verse and the first clause of verse 8 are spurious. Words which are not contained in a single Greek uncial manuscript, nor in a single Greek cursive earlier than the fourteenth century (the two which contain the passage being evidently translated from the Vulgate), nor are quoted by a single Greek Father during the whole of the Trinitarian controversy, nor are found in any authority until late in the fifth century, cannot be genuine.” [8]

Edward Gibbon:

“The Memorable text which asserts the unity of the THREE who bear witness in heaven is condemned by the universal silence of the Orthodox fathers, ancient versions and authentic manuscripts. It was first alleged by the Catholic bishops whom Huneric summoned to the conference of Carthage. An allegorical interpretation in the form, perhaps, of a marginal note invaded the text of the Latin Bibles which were renewed and corrected in the dark period of ten centuries. After the invention of printing, the editors of the Greek Testament yielded to their own prejudices, or those of the times; and the pious fraud, which was embraced with equal zeal at Rome and at Geneva, has been indefinitely multiplied in every country and every language of modern Europe.” [9]

It is quite clear from all the above scholarly statements that 1 John 5:7 is a forgery, and it originally was not part of Bible but was added. Let us now quote references and see where did the Trinity come from? Is the Trinity in the Bible? Did the Triune – God formula come from Jesus teachings or someone else i.e. the Church Fathers?

1. Jonathan Hill:

“It will be remembered that in the second century, Christian theologians such as Justin Martyr had used the old ‘logos’ idea – ultimately taken from pagan philosophy – to try express this relationship. Christ was the ‘logos’, a sort of Qausi-God who functions as Gods agent. This had formed the basis for the development of what would become the doctrine of the Trinity.” [10]

2. Joseph Priestley

“It has been shewn that there is no such doctrine as that of the Trinity in the Scriptures, but I will now add that, if it had been found there, it would have been impossible for a reasonable man to believe it, as it implies a contradiction which no miracles can prove.” [11]

3. Theodore D. Beacon:

“It is generally recognized that the doctrine of the trinity is not directly taught in the Bible, but it was claimed that we do find there set forth with great earnestness the various elements, the disjecta membra, as they are called, from which the doctrine was built up.” [12]

4. Henry S. Francis:

“The dogma of the Trinity three persons in one God – was formulated by St. Augistine.”[13]

5.Professor Keith Ward:

“It took the church hundreds of years to develop what we now think of as the doctrine of the Trinity.” [14]

Conclusion: A) None of the disciples baptized: “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” B) The formula that is quoted i.e. “Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” is never once referenced, not in any of the Gospels nor of Paul’s letters. C) Eusebius (260 – 339 CE) never once mentioned the formula, “Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” instead he only mentioned the name of “Jesus.” D) The Scholars quoted all agree that it was not part of the original text but an interpolation.

All the evidence quoted by the experts proved that 1 John 5:7 is a fraud, it was added in 1500th century by Erasmus. The words that are quoted by the KJV for 1 John 5:7 is not found in any Greek MSS. All in all the evidence we provided is in our favour that Matthew 28:19 and 1st John 5:7 are not genuine verses. Christians need to let go off the Trinity – Triune God, for Jesus never taught such doctrine. God never said he was a Trinity. The Bible never mentions anything about God being “three.” The Bible never mentions nothing about God referenced as a “Person.” Lastly the Bible never mentions anything about the “Holy Spirit” being God. I will finish off with these verses from Jesus mouth and what God says of Himself in the Old Testament.

Biblical passages that teach explicitly that there is One God:

ISAIAH 40:25 – To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal? says the Holy One.

ISAIAH 45:5 – I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:

DEUTERONOMY 4:35,39 — Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him. (39) Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.

DEUTERONOMY 6:4 – Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

ISAIAH 43:10-11 – Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.

ISAIAH 44:8 – Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.

ISAIAH 46:9 – Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me.

HOSEA 13:4 -Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.

MARK 12:29-34 — And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question. Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The LORD our God is the one and only LORD.

Don’t forget to follow Discover The Truth on Facebook and Twitter. PLEASE help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favourite social networks.

Related articles:

(1) – “Isaiah 9:6 Messiah God?”

(2) – “Isaiah 7:14, Immanuel: Prophecy of Jesus?”

(3) – “Daniel 7:13-14 Messiah Jesus God?”

M
References:

[1] George Holley Gilbert, The Biblical World, volume 34, No. 6, Dec., 1909 , page 374 to 378
[2] R. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament. Page 133
[3] Principal A. J. Grieve, A Commentary on the Bible (1920), page 723
[4] Former Priest Tom Harpur “For Christ’s sake, page 103
[5] Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament page 101-102
[6] Ezra Abbott The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel and Other Critical Essays: Page 459 to 463
[7] Brooke Foss WestCott The Epistle of St John (1892) Page 202
[8] http://biblehub.com/1_john/5-7.htm
[9] Edward Gibbon with Notes By the Reverend H. H. Milman. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire (1900), volume 6, Page 195 to 198
[10] Jonathan Hill, The history of Christianity page 80
[11] Joseph Priestley An History of early opinions concerning Jesus Christ, page 48
[12] The American Journal of Theology, volume 16, No. 4, Oct., 1912 Practical Aspects of the Doctrine of the Trinity by Theodore D. Bacon . Page 529
[13] Henry S. Francis The Holy Trinity (Journal) volume 48, No. 4, page 59
[14] Professor Keith Ward, Re-thinking Christianity page 24

This article was originally published on the following site: discover-the-truth.com

Categories: Christianity

Tags: 1 JOHN 5:7, Bible, Christianity, DIVINITY, FABRICATED, FORGERY, Jesus, MATTHEW 28:19, trinity