Do Trinitarian and Non-Trinitarian Christians Believe in Two Different Jesuses?

Do Trinitarian and Non-Trinitarian Christians Believe in Two Different Jesuses? February 11, 2016

A reader of this blog commented on my post that was posted on October 20, 2013, and entitled “Can Christians Be Trinitarian or Non-Trinitarian?” as follows:

“Kermit, I appreciate your thoughtful essay on this topic.

“You said, ‘The New Testament criterion, much of it quoted above, is that a person is saved by (1) believing God sent Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and Savior who died for our sins and arose from the dead, and (2) confessing Jesus as Lord and living for him.’

“And here is where I find the problem in your argument. I have discussed this over the years many, many times, and there are many people who take one side or the other, and there are others in the middle who say as long as we trust in Jesus, we are saved. I agree that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and His atoning work on the cross and resurrection. But we don’t all believe in the same Jesus, and only the actual Jesus can save a person — not a mythical one. Does that make sense?

“In other words, Jesus is either deity incarnate, or He is not God and only the Father is God. That is a very fundamental difference, and they cannot both be true. Therefore, if I say Jesus is God, and you say He is not, one of us worships a Jesus that doesn’t exist. I am interested in reading what you think of this.”

I then replied to this comment as follows:

“Kris, I hear you. I have a close male friend whose Trinitarian parents had substantial Christian ministry. He himself was ministering to prisoners who he said believed in different “Jesuses.” It caused him to reexamine Jesus in the New Testament, and he strongly concluded Jesus is not God, yet he still holds firmly to him as Savior and Lord. But he has since viewed Trinitarians as believing in a different Jesus from the Jesus he now believes in. Maybe a case can be made for that from 2 Cor 11.4–“someone comes and proclaims another Jesus.” But I doubt it. Both me and my friend each believed for over 20 years that Jesus was and is God. Then we changed to believing he is not God, but still our Lord and Savior. I don’t think we now believe in a different Jesus than as we did before. We now merely believe more accurately about Jesus’ identity. I guess this really just comes down to semantics. But as far as I’m concerned, Jesus is my Lord and Savior, so that I’m saved and belong to him, but the same is true of almost all of my Christian friends who are strongly Trinitarian. Thus, I believed in the same Jesus when I was a Trinitarian as I do now as a non-Trinitarian. The difference is that I now believe more accurately about who Jesus has always been–only a man, but since his resurrection an immortal man.”

This reader then commented, “Nice response…not a different Jesus, a more accurate understanding of him.”

…………….

To see a list of titles of 130+ posts (2-3 pages) that are about Jesus not being God in the Bible, with a few about God not being a Trinity, at Kermit Zarley Blog click “Chistology” in the header bar. Most are condensations of my book, The Restitution of Jesus Christ. See my website servetustheevangelical.com, which is all about this book,  with reviews, etc. Learn about my books and purchase them at kermitzarley.com. I was a Trinitarian for 22 years before reading myself out of it in the Bible.


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