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the activity of God through His word, His self-expression. God expressed Himself at the Genesis
creation, and finally when the unique Son (John 1:14, 18) came into existence, God spoke His ulti-
mate word in the historical Jesus. Jesus then is the revelation of the word of God. He is wisdom
and word in person, but nevertheless a human person. Jesus is what the word, or expression, or
promise of God became. But to alter John's words to read "In the beginning was the Son" sows the
seeds of the later terrible arguments and complexities related to how two Persons can be equally
God! The Church groaned for centuries under the burden of trying to work out, in terms of Greek
philosophy, the idea that God was two, and later three, coequal Persons in one Godhead. Since the
decisions of the church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries, Bible readers have been com-
pelled, on pain of heresy, to subscribe to the heavily philosophized creedal statements developed
in a period of three hundred years after the time of Jesus.

But the Bible cannot be forced into the extraordinary formula that God is one "what" (Es-
sence) in three "who's" (Persons). Even at the council of Nicea this definition was pronounced er-
roneous! At that time "essence" and "person" meant the same thing exactly and logic required that
God could not be one "X" and three "X's" in the same sense at the same time! Later it was decided
to give "essence" and "person" different meanings and God was then defined as one "essence"
(ousia, in Greek).

But note here the shocking obscuration of the most fundamental facts of the Bible. In Scrip-
ture God is not one impersonal essence. God is never a "what." He is a Person in the sense in
which we understand that word. Moreover God reveals Himself and His identity by means of hu-
man language and He has graciously consented to speak of Himself as "I," "Me," and "Him." These
singular, personal pronouns ought to convey to the open-minded the fact that God is a "single Per-
son," certainly not two or three Persons.

Lest any of our readers should imagine that our discussion this month is at the level of the-
ory and academics only, we suggest three points:

1) The present creedal statements of the Church effectively bar Muslims and Jews from even con-
sidering the claims of Christ for salvation.

2) A fierce and bloody history of killings and excommunications lies behind the discussion we are
conducting.

3) Celebrated and dedicated Bible scholars from various camps have since the time of Enlighten-
ment (and earlier at the Reformation) protested the fearfully complex and philosophically-worded
enigmas and mysteries of the Church's post-biblical creeds.

All of the post-biblical conflict over conformity to a creed backed by ecclesiastical law
was superfluous to the Bible which with transparent simplicity declares that "there is one God, the
Father, and one lord Jesus Messiah" (I Corinthians 8:4-6), the "my lord" of Psalm 110:1, so recog-
nized by Elizabeth as "my lord" (Luke 1:43). Luke goes on to teach that he is the "lord Messiah"
(Luke 2:11), and "the Messiah of the Lord [God -- YEHOVAH]" (Luke 2:26). The New Testament
presents him as the "Lord Jesus Messiah," so defined, as Peter said, by Psalm 110:1: "God has
made this Jesus both Lord and Messiah" (see Acts 2:34-36). He then went on to quote his

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