There are many orthodox, Trinitarian Christians in the Pentecostal movement. For example, I have a friend in the Assemblies of God who wholeheartedly affirms the doctrine of the Trinity. However, there are some who identify as Pentecostal but also teach “Oneness Doctrine.”
Modern Modalism
Oneness Pentecostals are a modern expression of an ancient heresy called modalism or Sabellianism (after the 3rd-century false teacher Sabellius). Modalism denies that there are three distinct persons in God. Instead, Modalists teach that God is one person who manifests himself in many forms or “modes,” including as “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit.” In this view, God is like a man who wears three masks or plays three roles.
Modalism denies that there are three distinct persons in God.
As a young Christian working as a grocery store cashier, I became friends with a woman who dressed conservatively and applauded me for keeping a Bible on my cash register. One day, her husband came in and tried to convince me of oneness doctrine. He explained, “Right now, I’m helping my wife to shop, and I’m in ‘husband’ mode. But I just got off work, where I was in ‘employee’ mode. And I’m heading home to play with my kids, where I’ll be in ‘father’ mode. God is like that. In the Old Testament, he mostly showed up in ‘father’ mode, but when he came to earth, he showed up in ‘son’ mode, and now he interacts with us in ‘spirit’ mode.” This is modalism in a nutshell.
Denying the Distinct Personhood of the Son and Spirit
A leading theologian in the Oneness Pentecostal movement, sometimes called the “Jesus Only” movement, is David K. Bernard, General Superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church International. In his book The Oneness of God, Bernard makes countless heretical claims. For example:
- “Jesus is the Father.”
- “The Son did not preexist the Incarnation except as a plan in the mind of God.”
- “The Bible does not speak of an eternally existing ‘God the Son.’”
- “There is no distinction of persons in God.”
- “Jesus is the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
Modalism is a deliberate rejection of nearly two thousand years of core consensual Christian teaching as summarized in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. It directly contradicts the plain teaching of Jesus Christ about his relationship with the Father, which is seen to be a central and passionate focus of Jesus in John’s Gospel.
Modalism is a deliberate rejection of nearly two thousand years of core consensual Christian teaching as summarized in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds.
While John 1 says that Jesus Christ is “God” (1:1) and “the only God” (1:18), it also says that Jesus is “the only Son from the Father” (1:14), and is “with God” (1:1)—that is, with the Father. As the Son of God the Father, Jesus is not the Father. A son is not the same person as his father. God repeatedly identifies Jesus as his Son (Matthew 3:17; 17:5), but nowhere is the Father or the Spirit identified as the Son. The Son was sent by the Father (John 3:16), prayed to the Father (Matthew 26:39), and asked the Father to glorify him so that he could glorify the Father (John 17:1). If the Son is the Father, then the Son sent himself, talked to himself, and asked himself to glorify himself so that he could glorify himself. That does not make any sense!
Jesus prayed to the Father and said, “You loved me before the world began!” (John 17:24). Was Jesus talking to himself to say that he loved himself? Of course not! Apart from a communion of persons in the one being of God, it even becomes incomprehensible to say “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Who was God loving before he created the world? I am almost done preaching through John’s Gospel over the course of about a year and a half, and I can’t imagine how twisted and convoluted one’s exegesis must become to explain all of the Father-Son statements apart from a real personal distinction between the two.
For a more robust defense of the classical Christian doctrine of the Trinity, see my article “Who is God? Introduction to the Trinity,” which concludes with a list of resources for further study.
A Fundamental Disagreement
The Trinity is not something about which we can “agree to disagree.” The Trinity is the deepest truth about God, and the greatest revelation of God to man in the gospel. It is about who God is, most fundamentally. There’s nothing more important. Imagine if someone denied the personhood of your wife or child; modalism denies the distinct personhood of the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit. Everything that we do as Christians is shaped by our understanding of who God is. Our prayer, preaching, worship, catechesis, sacramental practice, and evangelism is from the Trinity, through the Trinity, and for the Trinity. It’s Trinity-shaped and Trinity-directed. When we undermine the Trinity, we begin pulling at the fabric of our faith.
The Trinity is not something about which we can “agree to disagree.”
I have no doubt that there are individuals within Oneness Pentecostalism who are sincere in their faith and will be saved in the end. God has grace for anyone who is walking in the light that they have. But this doesn’t change the fact that as a group, Oneness Pentecostals strike at the very heart of the Christian faith by denying who God is as revealed in the gospel. Oneness Pentecostalism is not a Christian group. It is heretical. Its leaders are false teachers who are leading the sheep astray into destructive heresies. They are not brothers and sisters in Christ. They are enemies of God and the gospel.
In the big picture of things, there really aren’t that many doctrines that the Church has deemed heretical. But modalism is one of them, and for good reason. Listen to the Athanasian Creed:
Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith; Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
Modalists confuse the persons and do not worship God in Trinity. This is an egregious violation of the third commandment and of the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer concerning the sanctity and proper use and representation of the divine name.
A Barrier to Christian Fellowship
We dare not play fast and loose with Oneness teaching, or minimize our differences. We cannot worship in their churches or fellowship with their members. And we must not have an “agree-to-disagree” relationship with any individual within that group.
We dare not play fast and loose with Oneness teaching, or minimize our differences.
When I met the oneness Pentecostal man as a young Christian cashier, I didn’t have an option to say, “Well, at least we both believe that Jesus died on the cross!” No, I did my very best, by God’s grace, to defend my God. I remember pointing to the baptism of Jesus and asking, “Was the Son throwing his voice up into heaven to tell himself how pleased he is with himself, while descending upon himself as a dove to rest upon himself?!!” I continued to be friends with his wife, and I thought secretly to myself that she was probably just confused, seemed very sincere, and would probably be saved by God in spite of her wrong thinking. But in my friendship with her, I never explicitly called her a sister in the Lord, or extended assurance of salvation. The focus of my religious conversations with her was not our common ground. It was the fundamental issue of the Trinity, which would need to be resolved before we could enjoy any real Christian fellowship.
This is why theological triage is so important: It doesn’t matter how many secondary or tertiary matters we agree on if we disagree on the matters of first importance (see the chart here). Christians and Oneness Pentecostals cannot have an in-house debate like Baptists and Presbyterians, because Oneness Pentecostals are not in the house. The Trinity is a matter of first importance. It’s an essential issue. It’s of incomparably greater importance than Wesleyanism vs. Calvinism, and other such debates. It’s even of greater importance than Protestantism vs. Roman Catholicism.
The fact that so many Christians don’t understand this is a sad indictment on the state of catechesis and theological education in the Church. If someone thinks that we can have real Christianity while denying the Trinity, then they don’t understand the faith that they profess.
A Call for Theological Leadership
Every church member, and especially every pastor and church leader, needs to be equipped to give a crystal clear sound on this subject. This is not “just semantics” or “merely a technicality.” Someone who says so reveals an alarmingly shallow and distorted understanding of the gospel. They should be required to undergo rigorous theological training and examination before continuing in a place of church leadership.
This issue should be deeply personal for everyone who is baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The Christian life is thoroughly Trinitarian, from the way that we pray, to the way that we worship, to the way that we read the Bible. It’s unthinkable that someone would claim to be a Christian while denying the distinct personhood of the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit.
I urge every pastor: Provide theological leadership on this issue. Put in the time. Do the hard work. Strengthen your understanding of Trinitarian theology (there are some book recommendations at the end of this article). Confront false teachings. Teach the Trinity as a core Christian doctrine with every catechumen (there’s a lot of helpful resources in the forthcoming catechism from Holy Joys). Examine your weekly worship against historic Christian and Protestant liturgies, and consider if it’s sufficiently Trinitarian. Say or sing the Gloria Patri, sing the Doxology, and use Trinitarian benedictions like the Grace (2 Corinthians 13:14). Lead your churches in saying the Nicene Creed (at least once a month, though weekly is better) and the Athanasian Creed (at least a few times each year, especially on Trinity Sunday). The flock needs to understand who God is far more than they need to understand your denominational or local church distinctives, as important as those might be.
O Lord, vindicate the holiness of your great name, until all the world confesses one undivided God in three unconfused persons. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
