Is the true God that created the heavens and earth and all things one or three?
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“Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it suffises us. Jesus said to him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known me, Philip? he that has seen me has seen the Father; and how say you then, Show us the Father? Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak to you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works” (Jhn 14:8-10).
“I and my Father are one” (Jhn 10:30).
Relevant Words of God:
God is the One who rules over all things, and who administers all things. He created all that there is, He administers all that there is, and He also rules over all that there is and provides to all that there is. This is the status of God, and the identity of God. For all things and all that there is, God’s true identity is the Creator, and the Ruler of all things. Such is the identity possessed by God, and He is unique among all things. None of God’s creatures—whether they be among mankind, or in the spiritual world—can use any means or excuse to impersonate or replace God’s identity and status, for there is only one among all things who is possessed of this identity, power, authority, and the ability to rule over all things: our unique God Himself.
from “God Himself, the Unique X” in Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh
There is only one God, only one person in this God, and only one
Spirit of God, much as it is written down in the Bible that “There is
only one Holy Spirit and only one God.” … God is a Spirit, but He is
able to become flesh and live among men, as well as to be above all
things. His Spirit is all-inclusive and omnipresent. He can
simultaneously be in the flesh and throughout the universe. Since all
people say that God is the only one true God, then there is a single
God, divisible at will by none! God is only one Spirit, and only one
person; and that is the Spirit of God.
from “Does the Trinity Exist?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
If any among you says that the Trinity indeed exists, then explain
what exactly is this one God in three persons. What is the Holy Father?
What is the Son? What is the Holy Spirit? Is Jehovah the Holy Father? Is
Jesus the Son? Then what of the Holy Spirit? Is not the Father a
Spirit? Is not the substance of the Son also a Spirit? Was not the work
of Jesus the work of the Holy Spirit? Was not the work of Jehovah at the
time carried out by a Spirit the same as Jesus’? How many Spirits can
God have? According to your explanation, the three persons of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one; if so, there are three
Spirits, but to have three Spirits means there are three Gods. This
means that there is no one true God; how can this kind of God still have
the inherent substance of God? If you accept that there is only one
God, then how can He have a son and be a father? Are these not all
simply your notions? … If it is as you say, the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit, then are They not three Gods? The Holy Spirit is one
matter, the Son another, and the Father yet another. They are distinct
persons of different substances, so how then can They each be part of a
single God? The Holy Spirit is a Spirit; this is easy for man to
understand. If so, then the Father is even more so a Spirit. He has
never descended onto earth and has never become flesh; He is Jehovah God
in the heart of man, and He is certainly a Spirit as well. Then what is
the relationship between Him and the Holy Spirit? Is it the
relationship between Father and Son? Or is it the relationship between
the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of the Father? Is the substance of each
Spirit the same? Or is the Holy Spirit an instrument of the Father? How
can this be explained? And then what is the relationship between the Son
and the Holy Spirit? Is it a relationship between two Spirits or the
relationship between a man and a Spirit? These are all matters that can
have no explanation! If They are all one Spirit, then there can be no
talk of three persons, for They are possessed of a single Spirit. If
They were distinct persons, then Their Spirits would vary in strength,
and simply They could not be one single Spirit. This concept of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is most absurd! This segments God
and splits Him into three persons, each with a status and Spirit; how
then can He still be one Spirit and one God? Tell Me, were the heavens
and earth, and all things within it created by the Father, the Son, or
the Holy Spirit? Some say that They created it all together. Then who
redeemed mankind? Was it the Holy Spirit, the Son, or the Father? Some
say it was the Son who redeemed mankind. Then who is the Son in
substance? Is He not the incarnation of the Spirit of God? The
incarnation calls God in heaven by the name of Father from the
perspective of a created man. Are you not aware that Jesus was born from
the conception through the Holy Spirit? Within Him is the Holy Spirit;
whatever you say, He is still one with God in heaven, for He is the
incarnation of the Spirit of God. This idea of the Son simply is untrue.
It is one Spirit who carries out all of the work; only God Himself,
that is, the Spirit of God carries out His work. Who is the Spirit of
God? Is it not the Holy Spirit? Is it not the Holy Spirit who works in
Jesus? If the work had not been carried out by the Holy Spirit (that is,
the Spirit of God), then could His work represent God Himself? When
Jesus called God in heaven by the name of Father as He prayed, this was
done only from the perspective of a created man, only because the Spirit
of God had clothed Himself as an ordinary and normal man and had the
exterior cover of a created being. Even if within Him was the Spirit of
God, His exterior appearance was still that of an ordinary man; in other
words, He had become the “Son of man” of which all men, including Jesus
Himself, spoke. Given that He is called the Son of man, He is a person
(whether man or woman, in any case one with the exterior shell of a
human being) born into a normal family of ordinary people. Therefore,
Jesus calling God in heaven by the name of Father was the same as how
you at first called Him Father; He did so from the perspective of a man
of creation. Do you still remember the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus taught
you to memorize? “Our Father in heaven….” He asked all man to call God
in heaven by the name of Father. And since He too called Him Father, He
did so from the perspective of one who stands on an equal footing with
you all. Since you called God in heaven by the name of Father, this
shows that Jesus saw Himself to be on equal footing with you, and as a
man on earth chosen by God (that is, the Son of God). If you call God
“Father,” is this not because you are a created being? However great the
authority of Jesus on earth, prior to the crucifixion, He was merely a
Son of man, governed by the Holy Spirit (that is, God), and one of the
earth’s created beings, for He had yet to complete His work. Therefore,
His calling God in heaven Father was solely His humility and obedience.
His addressing God (that is, the Spirit in heaven) in such a manner,
however, does not prove that He is the Son of the Spirit of God in
heaven. Rather, it is simply that His perspective is different, not that
He is a different person. The existence of distinct persons is a
fallacy! Prior to His crucifixion, Jesus was a Son of man bound by the
limitations of the flesh, and He did not fully possess the authority of
the Spirit. That is why He could only seek the will of God the Father
from the perspective of a created being. It is as He thrice prayed in
Gethsemane: “Not as I will, but as you will.” Before He was laid on the
cross, He was but the King of the Jews; He was Christ, the Son of man,
and not a body of glory. That is why, from the standpoint of a created
being, He called God Father. … After Jesus went away, this idea of the
Father and the Son was no longer. This idea was only appropriate for the
years when Jesus became flesh; under all other circumstances, the
relationship is one between the Lord of creation and a created being
when you call God Father. There is no time at which this idea of the
Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can stand; it is a fallacy
rarely seen through the ages and does not exist!
from “Does the Trinity Exist?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
There are still those who say, did not God expressly state that Jesus
was His beloved Son? “Jesus is the beloved Son of God, in whom He is
well pleased” was certainly spoken by God Himself. That was God bearing
witness to Himself, but merely from a different perspective, that of the
Spirit in heaven bearing witness to His own incarnation. Jesus is His
incarnation, not His Son in heaven. Do you understand? Do not the words
of Jesus, “The Father is in Me and I am in the Father,” indicate that
They are one Spirit? And is it not because of the incarnation that They
were separated between heaven and earth? In reality, They are still one;
no matter what, it is simply God bearing witness to Himself. Owing to
the change in ages, requirements of the work, and the differing stages
of His management plan, the name by which man calls Him also differs.
When He came to carry out the first stage of work, He could only be
called Jehovah, shepherd of the Israelites. In the second stage, the
incarnate God could only be called Lord, and Christ. But at that time,
the Spirit in heaven stated only that He was the beloved Son of God, and
made no mention of His being the only Son of God. This simply did not
happen. How could God have an only child? Then would God not have become
man? Because He was the incarnation, He was called the beloved Son of
God, and, from this, came the relationship between Father and Son. It
was simply because of the separation between heaven and earth. Jesus
prayed from the perspective of the flesh. Since He had put on a flesh of
such normal humanity, it is from the perspective of the flesh that He
said: My outer shell is that of a created being. Since I put on a flesh
to come to this earth, I am now a long, long way from heaven. For this
reason, He could only pray to God the Father from the perspective of the
flesh. This was His duty, and that which the incarnate Spirit of God
should be furnished with. It cannot be said that He is not God simply
because He prays to the Father from the perspective of the flesh. Though
He is called the beloved Son of God, He is still God Himself, for He is
but the incarnation of the Spirit, and His substance is still the
Spirit.
from “Does the Trinity Exist?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
This may call to mind for most people the words of God from Genesis:
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Given that God says
let “us” make man in “our” image, then “us” indicates two or more; since
He stated “us,” then there is not just one God. In this way, man began
to think in the abstract of distinct persons, and from these words arose
the idea of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. What then is the
Father like? What is the Son like? And what is the Holy Spirit like?
Could it possibly be that the mankind of today was made in the image of
one joined together from three? Then is the image of man like that of
the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit? Which of the persons of God is
man in the image of? This idea of man’s is simply incorrect and
nonsensical! It can only split one God into several Gods. At the time
that Moses wrote Genesis, it was after mankind was created following the
creation of the world. In the very beginning, when the world began,
Moses did not exist. And it was not until much later that Moses wrote
the Bible, so how could he have possibly known what it was that God in
heaven spoke? He had not an inkling of how God created the world. In the
Old Testament of the Bible, there is no mention of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, only of the one true God, Jehovah, carrying out
His work in Israel. He is called by different names as the age changes,
but this cannot prove that each name refers to a different person. If
this were so, then would there not be innumerable persons in God? What
is written in the Old Testament is the work of Jehovah, a stage of work
of God Himself for commencement in the Age of Law. It was the work of
God, where as He spoke, it was, and as He commanded, it stood. At no
time did Jehovah say that He was the Father come to carry out work, or
did He ever prophesy the Son coming to redeem mankind. When it came to
the time of Jesus, it was only said that God had become flesh to redeem
all mankind, not that it was the Son who had come. Because the ages are
not alike and the work that God Himself does also differs, He needs to
carry out His work within different realms. In this way, the identity He
represents also differs. Man believes that Jehovah is the Father of
Jesus, but this was actually not acknowledged by Jesus, who said: “We
were never distinguished as Father and Son; I and the Father in heaven
are one. The Father is in Me and I am in the Father; when man sees the
Son, they are seeing the heavenly Father.” When all has been said, be it
the Father or the Son, They are one Spirit, not divided into separate
persons. Once man attempts to explain, matters are complicated with the
idea of distinct persons, as well as the relationship between Father,
Son, and Spirit. When man speaks of separate persons, does this not
materialize God? They even rank the persons as first, second, and third;
these are all but the conceptions of man, not worthy of reference, and
utterly unrealistic! If you asked him: “How many Gods are there?” he
would say that God is the Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit: the one true God. If you asked again: “Who is the Father?” he
would say: “The Father is the Spirit of God in heaven; He is in charge
of all, and is the Master of heaven.” “Then is Jehovah the Spirit?” He
would say: “Yes!” If you then asked him, “Who is the Son?” he would say
that Jesus is the Son, of course. “Then what is the story of Jesus? From
whence did He come?” He would say: “Jesus was born to Mary through the
conception of the Holy Spirit.” “Then is His substance not the Spirit as
well? Is not His work also representative of the Holy Spirit? Jehovah
is the Spirit, and so too is the substance of Jesus. Now in the last
days, needless to say it is still the Spirit at work;[a] how could They
be different persons? Is it not simply the Spirit of God carrying out
the work of the Spirit from different perspectives?” As such, there is
no distinction between persons. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and indubitably, His work was precisely that of the Holy Spirit. In the
first stage of work carried out by Jehovah, He neither became flesh nor
appeared to man. So man never saw His appearance. No matter how great
and how tall He was, He was still the Spirit, God Himself who first
created man. That is, He was the Spirit of God. When He spoke to man
from among the clouds, He was merely a Spirit. None witnessed His
appearance; only in the Age of Grace when the Spirit of God came into
the flesh and was incarnated in Judea did man see for the first time the
image of the incarnation as a Jew. The feeling of Jehovah could not be
sensed. However, He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, that is, conceived
by the Spirit of Jehovah Himself, and Jesus was still born as the
embodiment of the Spirit of God. What man first saw was the Holy Spirit
descending like a dove upon Jesus; it was not the Spirit exclusive to
Jesus, but rather the Holy Spirit. Then can the Spirit of Jesus be
separated from the Holy Spirit? If Jesus is Jesus, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit is the Holy Spirit, then how could They be one? The work could
not be carried out if so. The Spirit within Jesus, the Spirit in heaven,
and the Spirit of Jehovah are all one. It can be called the Holy
Spirit, the Spirit of God, the sevenfold intensified Spirit, and the
all-inclusive Spirit. The Spirit of God alone can carry out much work.
He is able to create the world and destroy it by flooding the earth; He
can redeem all mankind, and moreover, conquer and destroy all mankind.
This work is all carried out by God Himself and cannot have been done by
any other of the persons of God in His stead. His Spirit can be called
by the name of Jehovah and Jesus, as well as the Almighty. He is the
Lord, and Christ. He can also become the Son of man. He is in the
heavens and also on the earth; He is on high above the universes and
among the multitude. He is the only Master of the heavens and earth!
From the time of creation until now, this work has been carried out by
the Spirit of God Himself. Be it the work in the heavens or in the
flesh, all is carried out by His own Spirit. All creatures, whether in
heaven or on earth, are in the palm of His almighty hand; all of this is
the work of God Himself and can be done by no other in His stead. In
the heavens, He is the Spirit but also God Himself; among men, He is
flesh but remains God Himself. Though He may be called by hundreds of
thousands of names, He is still Himself, and all the work[b] is the
direct expression of His Spirit. The redemption of all mankind through
His crucifixion was the direct work of His Spirit, and so too is the
proclamation unto all nations and all lands during the last days. At all
times, God can only be called the almighty and one true God, the
all-inclusive God Himself. The distinct persons do not exist, much less
this idea of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! There is only one
God in heaven and on earth!
from “Does the Trinity Exist?” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
Footnotes:
a. The original text omits “at work.”
b. The original text omits “the work.”
from"The Twenty Truths of Bearing Witness to God"
Recommendation:
The Church of Almighty God was founded by Almighty God personally
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