Did you get the Revelation? Or were you taught some doctrinal points and propositions that needed to be affirmed and maintained?
Here's my story:
I was living in sin, until Christ began to call me through his Word. All my objections and excuses were broken down and demolished, and I was left with nothing but conviction. convicted that I was in sin, a sinner, a rebel against God. Convicted that Christ died for my sin, and took judgment upon Himself that I might escape that judgment. Convicted that if I did not repent and flee to Him for mercy and grace I would die in my sins and suffer eternal judgment.
So I repented of my sins. I began praying and fasting. I knew very little of the Bible, but I knew enough to know I needed whatever salvation those Christians in the Bible had. I prayed for God's Spirit. I had no idea what that meant, I had never met a Pentecostal or charismatic person, I just knew that reading the Bible God's people had something I desperately needed - God in them. A REAL genuine bona fide salvation.
I wound up homeless at a very small independent Baptist church-run mission for street people. I was in service one night, at the tail end of the service, when everyone was "standing with eyes closed and heads bowed" for final prayer. I had been praying and fasting for God to save me, really truly and genuinely save me, to make Bible salvation a REALITY in my life. I clung to His promises in the Word, and this night something happened.
While praying I eventually ran out of things to pray. I just surrendered myself to God. I cannot describe it too well, it was just a simple and yet total surrendering of myself to God. And something fell out of Heaven into my very soul, my very inner being. It exploded inside and shot out like a geyser. The distinct impression I had at the time was like Old Faithful blowing up and gushing forth, only instead of actual water gushing out it was the most marvellous prayer, in another language. I could sense what the prayer involved, but not specifically word for word, just the general import. I was totally overwhelmed with DIVINE LOVE, the Love of the Saviour towards ME, me personally. The Great God of Heaven knew me personally, and loved me personally, and somehow had expressed His love to me in a most direct and personal way. God Himself had literally come inside of my very Being, and I was crying, shaking, and praying in some other language.
I had never heard "Oneness", knew nothing whatsoever about theology, or theology disputes, or "Godhead issues". But one thing I KNEW the moment it happened, and while it was happening:
It was JESUS CHRIST who was now inside me. Inside my innermost being. Spirit, soul, heart, whatever you want to call it, it was JESUS CHRIST who came to me and took up residence in me. I knew that I knew that I knew it. And what was startling was it was not at all what I expected. I had no expectation of Jesus himself taking up residence in my soul. I was just praying to get good old fashioned bible salvation. I was praying for God to give me His Spirit...
and He gave me JESUS!
From that moment on I KNEW who God was. I knew He was JESUS CHRIST, the One who suffered and died on a cross for me, who came out the tomb alive and victorious because death had no hold on Him - because HE IS GOD ALMIGHTY.
A couple days later I met a man who invited me to visit his church. I went and discovered there were other people who had experienced this overwhelming, mind blowing immersion in the love of JESUS CHRIST. This brother showed me three scriptures -
Matthew 28:19,
Isaiah 9:6, and
Acts 2:38.
It made perfect sense to me. JESUS CHRIST is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He is GOD. Later that week I was baptised in His saving Name in obedience to the scriptures.
It would be a couple years before I ever heard the term "Oneness" or had any clue what it meant. If you had asked me "do you believe in the trinity?" I would said "Of course! Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! And His name is JESUS CHRIST!!!!" It would be years afterwards that I would discover what trinitarianism actually proposed, and that there was an alternative view called "Oneness" that seemed to express what I had not only experienced but confirmed in the Scriptures. Whenever I would hear preachers say "you need a Revelation!" and "It's a Revelation!" I knew EXACTLY what they meant,
because I had it!
And I got it independently of man, before I ever heard the term "Oneness" or ever even met a Oneness apostolic believer or even knew they existed.
In the years since God brought me this precious Truth by direct Revelation and Experience, confirming His Word with signs and wonders following, I have met an increasing number of people who seem to be Oneness as taught to them by flesh and blood. I don't mean they were given a Bible study and saw the Truth, I mean something else. They seem to have an academic understanding of being a "Oneness adherent" but they do not seem to have had an actual Revelation from God. Oneness is just a convenient theological explanation that, in their minds, is somewhat more satisfactory than say trinitarianism or some other -ism. And so I wonder how they ever became Oneness to begin with, because from a philosophical point of view Oneness doctrine is foolish and rather low-brow. It's not nuanced and technical enough, it's "theology for dummies and hillbillies", or so it seems to the mass of the theological illuminati.
Anyway, I always wonder... when I meet "trinitarian Pentecostals", I like to ask them: "When you got the Holy Ghost, just exactly WHO DID YOU GET?"
I cannot even fathom receiving the Holy Ghost and not knowing intuitively and immediately by direct knowing that JESUS CHRIST is the Alpha and Omega, Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Jehovah God Himself, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Son of God, firstborn of Creation, and all of it. It's All In him indeed.
So... how did YOU come to be "Oneness"?
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