So just joining hands and singing Kum Ba yah will not cut it.

It is important to believe what all the scriptures say about Christ..

Don't fool yourself into thinking that this discussion is just a matter of semantics and what is happening here is a fruitless exercise.

Walter Martin said: "The Person and work of Christ is indeed the very foundation of Christian faith. And if it is redefined and interpreted out of context and therefore contrary to its Biblical content, the whole message of the gospel is is radically altered, and its value correspondingly diminished... " (Kingdom of the Cults, Martin, pg 335)

Look at any group that denies that Christ is God Almighty and you will also have a group that is forced to take up the slack with human effort in their salvation.

If Christ is any less than God almighty then all are still dead in their sins.

Regarding the Trinity Dave Hunt says:

"Only Christians hold the latter view - and even some who call themselves Christians reject it. Yet it is the only biblical, logical and philosophically coherent view of God possible. It is also the only real opposition to the Antichrist's ecumenical world religion. All other views of God can be accommodated by the Antichrist - but not the biblical doctrine of the Trinity.

The inconceivably complete identity of God is the paradigm of all personhood, as its very plurality is the foundation of all relatedness. Such is the "image of God" in which we are made. In that light, the doctrine of the Trinity is not some facile mystification, but a straightforward statement of the multiple personhood of God ...

If God is a Person, that ... translates into moral absolutes for us ... humanity's alienation from God has occurred at precisely that level of character and relationship. (1) "

http://www.apocalypsesoon.org/xfile-51.html

Packer says the following:

"This is the real stumbling block in Christianity. It is here that Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, Unitarians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Bahai, Scientology, and many of those who feel the difficulties above mentioned (about the virgin birth, the miracles, the atonement, and the resurrection), have come to grief. It is from misbelief, or at least inadequate belief, about the incarnation that difficulties at other points in the gospel story usually spring. But once the incarnation is grasped as a reality, these other difficulties dissolve...

The real difficulty, because the supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us, does not lie here at all. It lies, not in the Good Friday message of atonement, nor in the Easter message of resurrection, but in the Christmas message of incarnation. The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man—that the second person of the Godhead became the "second man" (1 Corinthians 15:47), determining human destiny, the second representative head of the race, and that He took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as He was human. Here are two mysteries for the price of one—the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus.

It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. "The Word was made flesh" (John 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child." (Knowing God, Packer, God Incarnate)

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known. (John 1, NIV)

Notice that the one who 'was God' and 'was with God' (John 1:1; John 1:18) and that 'his own' didn't understand or receive (John 1:5,11) but we 'receive', (John 1:12) for salvation, is in context of this passage God the Word made flesh.

So one cannot say, 'I receive Christ, but don't believe He is one of the persons of the Triunity',  because receiving Him is receiving who He is, according to this chapter.  

Notice that those in 'the darkness' didn't understand and accept this truth and we are to have no fellowship with them.

17 I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. (Romans 16)

"But he continued, 'You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.' ...47 He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God." ...58 "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds." (John 8)

BJ Maxwell

Revised 12/20/2006

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