Is this a "Oneness" Pentecostal church?

[Annsan_In_Him]

You are wise to pause and check this out first before proceeding. Yet if you are confused on what the Trinity doctrine states, you need help to understand that first before you will be able to weigh up this church's stance. Let me try to put it succinctly for you, and then you can look at the links.

The one Being of God subsists in the three Persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. None of the three Persons were ever created but have existed eternally as the Godhead. The Trinity doctrine tries to do justice equally to the One Being of God as to the three Persons who share this same divine 'Being'.

Oneness Pentecostals are so keen to 'protect' one aspect of the doctrine (that God is One), they fall into the trap of denying the second aspect (that this One Being subsists in the three Persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.) They end up with a modern day variation on the ancient heresy of Modalism.

Modalism goes back to before AD 200 and is attributed to a chap called Marcion, a Syrian gnostic. He adopted the gnostic view of the spiritual Father who revealed himself in Jesus, making a dualistic distinction between the Creator and the true but unknown God, the Father. So he denied that Jesus was truly incarnate (which is the heresy of Docetism). Marcion taught that Jesus was merely "the spirit of salvation, and did not truly suffer and die on the cross, for God cannot suffer and die. Marcion's successors so fully identified Christ with the Father that they presented Jesus as but a mode of the Father - Modalism.

Modalism abandons the personality of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The modern-day variation of this heresy with the Oneness Pentecostals is that the Son is the Father (not that the Father is the Son). They either stress that God is now the Son (and not the Father) or that, since the Son returned to Heaven, he is now the Holy Spirit.

Why do they do this? It's due to incorrect teaching and understanding of the Trinity doctrine in the main and, granted, this ancient Church doctrine is not simple to grasp! (Well, what kind of a God WOULD be simple to express, doctrinally?) Although the Oneness Pentecostals uphold the deity of Christ and avoid the trap of saying He's a second or secondary god (as say the Jehovah's Witnesses), it undermines Jesus' role as Christ being our advocate, representative before God. It turns the events of redemptive history into a sort of charade. Not being a distinct person, the Son cannot actually represent us to the Father. It says Christ was human in appearance only; it suggests that God Himself died on the cross, and that Jesus did not provide a vicarious atonement.

So you see how this strikes at the foundations of some of the most important Christian theology? I have had discussions with some Oneness Pentecostals, and they are truly sincere. But one can be sincerely wrong. Unfortunately, their presentation confuses millions of other people who think that all Christians believe what they believe. Those millions are represented on here by mockers who say that Christians teach that Jesus is His own Father. No. That's not what Christianity teaches. The Trinity is clear that the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father etc. But Oneness Pentecostals have caused this confusion. Muslims and Jehovah's Witnesses (who hate the Trinity doctrine with a vehement loathing) continually quote Oneness Pentecostals, imagining they are quoting Christianity. It causes no end of trouble for Christians who know full well that Jesus is not His own Father.

Now, if I've not done justice to the Oneness Pentecostal view of the Being of God, I'm sorry. I'm trying my best to grasp where they differ from orthodox teaching on the Trinity. They DO differ, and it's a serious difference. Please don't make your criteria for joining a church whether they've got a good youth group or not! Seek God in prayer to see where HE wants you to be! AiH