Somebody will tell you the Trinity is a New Testament idea the church invented later. But hear me, child of God, if you read the Old Testament carefully, from Genesis to Malachi, it supports the Trinity more clearly than it ever supports Oneness. Let me show you one thing most people walk right past: the Angel of the LORD.
The Angel who is God, yet distinct from God
All through the Old Testament there appears “the angel of the LORD,” and He is not an ordinary angel: He is called God, and receives worship, yet He is distinct from the God who sends Him. When He met Hagar, she said:
“And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me…” (Genesis 16:13, KJV)
At the sacrifice of Isaac, the angel of the LORD said, “now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son… from me” (Genesis 22:12): speaking as God Himself. In the burning bush, “the angel of the LORD appeared unto him… God called unto him out of the midst of the bush” (Exodus 3:2,4). And when Manoah realized who he had seen, he cried, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God” (Judges 13:22). One who is God, and yet sent by God. That is not a mode. That is a Person.
Three actors in one verse
And Isaiah, hundreds of years before Bethlehem, hands you all three at once:
“…the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me.” (Isaiah 48:16, KJV)
Count them: the Lord GOD who sends, His Spirit, and the One sent. And when God speaks of the pierced Messiah, He says, “they shall look upon me whom they have pierced” (Zechariah 12:10): the LORD Himself, pierced in the Son. The Father speaks to the Son, “Thou art my Son” (Psalm 2:7); “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand” (Psalm 110:1). The Old Testament is full of it. Oneness doctrine has to ignore half the Bible to protect one word; the Trinity lets you take all of it seriously. Glory to God.
Related Teaching
- The Trinity Is Not Three Gods
- The Fatal Flaw of the Oneness Echad Argument
- Let Us Make Man: Plural Persons, One Creator
The Gospel, Stated Plainly
Everything I teach on this site rests on one message from Scripture. Read it in God’s own words from 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, Romans 1:16, and Ephesians 2:8-9.
“And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
2 Corinthians 5:18-21 (KJV)
Watch the teachingNew verse by verse studies go out every week on YouTube, King James Version, with the passage on the screen. Subscribe to The Prevailing Word of God, taught by John Kempf of Melbourne, Florida.