Common Objections on Trinity: Answered #12 Oneness Standard proof text: John 5:43 John 5:43 “I have come in My Father’s name, and you did not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him.” In Oneness theology, the name of the unipersonal deity is “Jesus.” So, Oneness teachers tell us when Jesus here claims that He comes “in His Father’s name,” He is actually declaring that the name of the Father (and the Son) is “Jesus.” To make sense of the passage, that is, to make it teach Modalism, Bernard(Oneness teacher) has this to say: The Bible plainly states that there is one Father (Malachi 2:10; Ephesians 4:6). It also clearly teaches that Jesus is the one Father (Isaiah 9:6; John 10:30). . . . It is important to note that the name of the Father is Jesus, for this name fully reveals and expresses the Father. In John 5:43, Jesus said, “I am [sic] come in my Father’s name.” In other words, the Son inherited His Father’s name. . . . He fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy that stated the Messiah would declare the name of the LORD (Psalm 22:22; Hebrews 2:12). In what name did the Son come? What name did He obtain from His Father by inherence? What name did the Son manifest? The answer is apparent. The only name He used was the name of Jesus, His Father’s name. As seen in other places, context is no friend of Oneness theology. At the outset, when the entire chapter is plainly read one cannot escape the clear distinctions between the Father and the Son. For #example, notice in John 5:30-32 the straightforwardness in which the Son differentiates Himself from the Father: “I can do nothing on My #own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. If I alone testify about Myself, My testimony is not true. There is #another [allos estin] who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true” (emphasis added). “There is another,” Jesus said, not one, but ANOTHER (allos). Do Oneness advocates really think that Jesus’ audience would have understood Jesus as saying, “Oh yes, there is “another” witness however what I really mean is the “other” witness that I keep talking about, well, that is really Me—as the Father.” In candidness, to completely abandon the plain reading, “There is another witness,” and trade it for Modalism, is beyond a simple read-out interpretation, it is completely eisegetical, reading into the text a meaning that is external to the passage itself. Furthermore, there is even a larger strike against the Oneness rendering of the passage. I touched on it above. It is concerning the term “name” again. Simply, the term onoma (“name”) is found no less than one hundred and fifty-six times in the New Testament. Note that the normal first century application of the term “name” predominantly was used to signify “authority” or “on behalf of.” This New Testament meaning extends back to such Old Testament passages as the David and Goliath narrative: You come to me with a sword, a spear and a javelin, but I come to you in the #name of the LORD [Yahweh] of host, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted (1 Sam. 17:45; emphasis added). #David had informed the Philistines that he came in the “name” of the Lord, that is, by the authority of the Lord. Hence, Oneness dogma: Jesus is the name of the Father, does not follow, for just as David was not claiming to be the Lord himself, only coming in the authority of the Lord, so also Jesus was not claiming to be the Father, only coming in His authority. We can see this meaning even in modern parlance, as in the phrase, “Stop in the name of (or authority) of the law!” In the same way, then, Jesus here (John 5:43) comes in the authority or in behalf of the Father. ~Glory Apologetics (Christiandefense)
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 07:54:27 +0000
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