Hey friends, this is Michael Bohm with Youth Apologetics Training. Today we're going to start a new series, but yet we're kind of continuing this series on Oneness Pentecostals and what they believe. But I'm really going to try and isolate this series in the sense that a lot of you downloaded this not because you're interested in Oneness Pentecostals, but rather if modalism is a biblical doctrine. So, I am going to keep referencing the Oneness Pentecostals. Nonetheless, I kept the title separate from that series, so that some of you can check into this, because you're not really interested in Oneness Pentecostals. Is modalism biblical? And what is modalism? Modalism is the idea, the concept, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all one God, as we biblically should believe, but are all one person. They're all one and the same. And so, in the Old Testament, God manifests Himself as the Father. In the New Testament, God manifests Himself as the Son. And then, after the Ascension, God manifests Himself now in the Holy Spirit. Now, Oneness Pentecostals will take it a little further, and they will say, at least some of them will teach that the Father refers to the deity aspect of Jesus. The Son refers to His human or humanity side of Jesus, you know, His incarnation state, if you will. And then the Holy Spirit refers to God imparting Himself to mankind, or empowering mankind, sometimes. All right? So, does that make sense? Modalism is the concept that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one person making up one God. The Trinity, the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, states that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three persons making up one God. Now, Oneness Pentecostals often are mistaken on what we, who believe in the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, They actually believe that we think the Trinity is three gods. And recently, I came into contact with a Oneness Pentecostal for what I believe is the very first time. He's a minister. Very nice guy. Very nice guy. And we were talking, and he mentioned that he was a Pentecostal. We were talking Christianity. I don't know why, but I always seem to get in those conversations. But we're talking Christianity, and all of a sudden, he made it a point to say, our God is one God. And immediately, that flagged me. Immediately, I looked at him and I said, You said Pentecostal, but did you mean Oneness Pentecostal?" He said, yeah, brother, that's what I mean. Okay, so he's a Oneness Pentecostal. That got me going home, because I was like, oh man, I got to study up on that. That's something I don't know too much about. And so, interestingly enough, getting back to my point, I think he believes this minister. I believe that he believes that we think that there are three gods in the Trinity. And when I repeated back to him, I said, three persons, one God. He looked at me a little sideways, and I think I caught him off guard a little bit. It looked like he wasn't sure what to say about that. Like, no, that's not what you believe kind of look. Maybe I'm wrong, I might have misinterpreted that look. Whatever the case. Many of them think that we believe in three gods. So today, I want to talk about modalism, and chances are this is going to take two days to get through all these scriptures and just look at why people believe this. And we can start in the Old Testament, we can start with the Shema. The Shema is something that most Jews will say or repeat every single day. Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4, Here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. I agree. I agree. Isaiah, chapter 43, verse 10. Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant, whom I have chosen that, check this out, I love this, and this is a great scripture for Mormons who believe in basically infinite numbers of gods, that ye may know and believe me and understand." Okay, so God's really trying to make a point here. "...that I am He. Before me there was no God formed, and besides me there is no Savior." In other words, there's one God, and I think that's pretty set in stone. You can go through the scriptures and find reference after reference after reference that there is only one God. Okay? And Oneness Pentecostals and other modalists do well to understand and believe that there is only one God. The mistake they make is that that one God manifests in three different modes. Okay? It's not three distinct persons, but three modes. Now, let's talk about the definition of persons. Okay? What makes one a person? What would be the attributes of being a person? I pulled this right off of Karm.org. Let's give credit where it's due. Matt Slick, once again, comes through with a great list, a great look at, what does it mean to be a person? Matt Slick says this, A. A person exists and has an identity. All right? So, we do have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They each have a distinct identity. But is it But are they just different modes? Well, let's read on. A person is aware of his own existence and identity. And we see scriptures throughout the Bible where we see that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit exist as their own, have their own existence and identity. Again, we're going to get to all the scriptures here in a few minutes, so hang tight. So, moving on, a self-aware person will use such a statement as, I am, me, mine, etc. Again, we're going to look at a couple scriptures that use those types of phrases coming straight out of Jesus' mouth. And as opposed to, in the same sentence, like, my will be done, thy will be done, we see this me-you interaction happening. which if you want to make it the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God in different modes, that kind of interaction makes no sense. Moving on, a person can recognize the existence of other persons, and we will see that. Moving on, a person possesses a will, all right? And we will see that the Father has a will, the Son has a will, and the Holy Spirit have a will. And we do see a distinction there in the Garden between Jesus' will, He really didn't want to go through with that, you know, may this cup pass from me, but Jesus knew that He had to do this. He had to. But in the flesh, He was thinking, oh, I don't want to do this. This is going to hurt. Maybe I'm putting words in his mouth, but that's what I would have been thinking. But Christ knew what He had to do, and it was predicted, and He understood what His goal was, what His mission was, and He was going to complete it nonetheless. He wasn't too excited about it. He had His own will, and the Father had His will. Moving on, a single person cannot have two separate and distinct wills at the same time on the exact same subject. Makes sense. Moving on, a person has the ability to communicate. And again, we see this. We see this interaction between Jesus and the Father. And we even see interaction between Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Again, we'll look at some scriptures. 8. Persons do not need to have bodies. And we see that, for example, the Father is a spirit, and they that worship Him worship Him in spirit and truth. We also see that the angels don't have bodies either. And so, that needs to be thrown in there as well, because the Holy Spirit has the attributes of being a person, but doesn't have a body. Okay, so now we're going to get into the scriptures, many scriptures, that illustrate the plurality of our one God, the three persons, one God. Okay? And before we get too deep, I want to look at another concept, because this is going to help us as we move forward. One of the things, again, like I said, that Oneness Pentecostals and those who believe in modalism believe is that In the Old Testament, it was the Father that was manifesting as God. Okay, that was the mode, if you will, modalism mode, that God manifested Himself in the Old Testament. Now, we read in John 6, verse 46, that, "...not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father." And we see many other scriptures. There are several in the New Testament that and Old Testament, for that matter, that give us that same idea that nobody has seen the Father except Jesus and, well, the Holy Spirit. Again, not that any man has seen the Father, save he which is of God, he has seen the Father. 1 Timothy 6, chapter 16, "...who only hath immortality dwelling in the light, which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen." I just want to throw that in there, because as we look at several of these scriptures, we're going to see a theme that's happening here. Because in the Old Testament, there are several times where God does make Himself seen. For example, Exodus chapter 6, verses 2 and 3, Now, why did God say it that way? So He appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But at the same time, we hear in the New Testament that the Father has not been seen by any man. Now, there are many other scriptures throughout the Old Testament where God makes himself known and appears to various characters in the Old Testament. And even some of them fall down and worship him. All right. Now, we know it's not an angel because this being is being worshiped and receiving worship and speaking the words of God. If it's not the Father, who is it? Well, the biblical position is that it's Jesus. It is what some theologians refer to as a theophany. It's Jesus showing up and making himself known before his incarnation. Fascinating! Fascinating subject! And so we see that no man hath seen the Father, but they obviously have seen God. Okay? And it only makes sense, and you can only conclude at that point, that they did see God, but they didn't see the Father. So who did they see? And at that point, it only makes sense, they saw Jesus. And then we see Jesus in the New Testament saying that before Abraham was, I am. And we see indication in the New Testament that it was, in fact, Jesus that spoke to some of these Old Testament characters. But I just want to lay that little foundation, and we're going to look at some scriptures here, and see that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are clearly distinct persons. But I'm not going to do that today. We're going to do that tomorrow, because I'm getting pretty close to the 15-minute mark. and I like to keep them right at about 15 minutes. Friends, I urge you, if you have not left a comment on iTunes under Youth Apologetics, if you like what I'm doing, if you like what I'm doing, I ask you, I urge you to go to iTunes and leave a nice comment. That's going to help this message get heard and seen by others as well. So anyway, thanks for that. And guys, if you'd like to connect with me on Google+, Facebook, or Twitter, you can definitely find me out there. I love talking to you guys. And with that, I love you guys, and I'll see you tomorrow.