An Exhortation

[Pressing-On]

Originally Posted by Esaias

Years ago I began to suspect something. I saw the early proto trinitarian evolution away from strict monotheism to full blown trinitarianism, and I kept noticing certain parallels in the evolution of Oneness teachers over the decades. I think I see what happened:

Paul (and others) refer to Christ as pre existing as God. I believe he and they were saying that "He Who you knew as 'God' is He Who manifested Himself among us in the person known as Jesus the Messiah." But some folks took the apostolic statements to mean the individual person (in the common sense of the term) known as Jesus was pre existing AS Jesus prior to the virgin birth. Thus many Oneness people use "Jesus" as the name of God irregardless of any reference to the incarnation. Over time this - combined with certain mistakes concerning the nature and origin of the Logos - ultimately evolve into a "Second pre existing Divine Person".

In other words, I think some in the Oneness camp are (albeit unawares and unintentionally) drifting into a proto trinitarian view. History seems to be repeating itself. It takes several generations (a couple hundred years) but I can see the trajectory paralleling the early trinitarian evolution.

Totally agree with the bold. The operative words are “manifested” and “begotten”. Hence the body could never exist in the beginning, but the name could and would be revealed later to those that had ears to hear.