"I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire." Matthew 3:11 KJV
'He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire,' is both a faulty and a misleading translation of the Greek, AUTOS UMAS BAPTISEI EN PNEUMATI AGIW KAI PURI 'He shall baptize you in holy spirit and fire.' By the use of the phrase, 'the Holy Ghost,' the translators wished to imply a personality in the Spirit which is nowhere seen in the New Testament, and for the same reason they inserted the definite article 'the' where none exists in the Greek. It was disgraceful in the translators to allow their prejudices in favour of the doctrine of a Trinity to interfere with the truth by translating the passage so as to deceive. If there is a passage in the New Testament which ought to have opened the eyes of men to the fallacy and absurdity of the doctrine of the Trinity, this passage ought to have done so. Here it states that Jesus was to baptize men with the supposed third Person in that Trinity; and yet Trinitarians profess to believe that all the Persons in their assumed Trinity are equal in power and glory.
This passage is quite fatal to such a doctrine, for two reasons:-—First, because it proves that what is termed Holy Spirit is not a personality, but an undefined essence or quality. And, secondly, because it is an improbability, not to say an impossibility, that the second supposed Person of this assumed Trinity should have power to take the supposed third Person and use him as if he were a created thing, like blood or water, to baptize men with.
"And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him." Matt 3:16 KJV
Here again we have an example of the confusion produced by translating the one Greek word PNEUMA sometimes by the term 'spirit,' at other times by the term 'ghost.' In Matthew's 16th verse, Mark's 10th, in the 32d and middle of 33d verses of John, it is properly rendered 'spirit,' Matthew calling it 'the Spirit of the God,' TO PNEUMA TOU QEOU while Luke, in verse 22, calls it 'the Spirit, the holy,' TO PNEUMA TO AGIOU; while John, at the end of the 33d verse, says of Christ: 'who baptizeth in holy spirit,' O BAPTIZWN EN PNEUMATI AGIW. In not one of these passages is personality applied to the Spirit, though the translators wished it to appear that such was the case, by twice erroneously translating the Greek into the English phrase, 'the Holy Ghost.'
The baptizing or anointing with the Holy Spirit of God was 'that which gave Jesus the title of 'The Christ,' which means 'the anointed.' It was this anointing which gave Jesus power to reveal the will of God to man, and to work miracles. Peter bears direct evidence to this: 'How the God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with Holy Spirit and power,' IHSOUN TON APO NAZAREQ WS ECRISEN AUTON O QEOS PNEUMATI AGIW KAI DUNAMEI.—Acts X. 38.
Now, in the eye of reason, such an anointing is utterly subversive of the doctrine of a Trinity, because, in order to enable the second Person of the Trinity to perform the task imposed on Him by the God and Father of all, the first Person of this supposed Trinity has to take the supposed third Person, and with Him baptize or anoint the supposed second Person.
Had Jesus been the second Person in a real Trinity, where all are supposed to be of equal power and glory, He would have had, in and of Himself, all the power and knowledge which the others had, or could impart to Him. But, contrary to all this, Christ's whole life on earth was spent in teaching men that He could do nothing of Himself, that all His knowledge and all His power came from His God and Father, and that even the doctrines He taught and the words He uttered were not His own, but God's.
No one can reconcile such acknowledged facts with the doctrine of a Trinity, which, indeed, is nowhere taught in the Scriptures when they are properly looked into. That doctrine was an adaptation and adoption of the trinity of gods taught by the ancient
heathen Greeks. But the ancient debased Christian Church, not content 'with the adoption of a trinity of male gods, shortly afterwards adopted the Greek goddess also, so that the corrupt Christian Church had then in her Pantheon the whole FOUR DEI MAJORES of the heathen Greeks, viz. the three male gods, Zeus, Poseidon, and Aidoneus, and the female goddess Here; but all, to suit Christian ideas, re-baptized, so that Zeus became God the Father, Poseidon the Son, and Aidoneus the Holy Ghost, while Here reappeared as the Virgin Mary.
Once the first downward step was taken, the reversion of Christianity to Polytheism was rapid, for the ancient Church soon embodied all the inferior heathen gods and goddesses under the Christianized names of the saints and martyrs of her own Church; and we see the debasing effects of such worship on all the nations who follow the teaching of the Romish Church, for she has now no right to be called a Church of Christ, being truly the Church of Mary.
In the eye of reason, the doctrine of a Trinity, qualify it how men may, is neither more nor less than teaching a plurality of gods — teaching POLYTHEISM. A trinity of chief gods was taught by several nations before God revealed Himself to the Jews as JEHOVAH, THE ONE ONLY TRUE GOD; and it was for the purpose of putting an end to TRITHEISM and POLYTHEISM that MONOETHEISM was taught as the leading thread of the whole Old Testament revelations. God made no change on this fundamental doctrine of religion when He sent His messenger, Jesus Christ, to make a further revelation of His will to man; but, on the other hand, it may be said that one of the special objects for which Christ was sent into this world was that He might re-affirm, in the most solemn manner, the UNITY of the one only true God. Thus it was the very last doctrine which He taught with His dying breath on the cross, and the very first which He taught when He rose from the grave, that the supreme God and Father of all was His God: 'MY GOD, MY GOD, why hast Thou forsaken me? —Matt. xxvii. 46. 'Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto MY FATHER AND YOUR FATHER; AND TO MY GOD AND YOUR GOD.'—John xx. 17.
If God the Father be the God of Jesus Christ, as these passages unmistakeably teach, there can be NO Trinity.
Leaving out of sight the direct teaching that 'TO US THERE IS BUT ONE GOD, THE FATHER,' 1 Cor. viii. 6, it may be remarked that the above teaching of Christ is fully corroborated by the apostolic writings, in which occur at least seven passages which directly teach that God The Father Is The God Of Our Lord Jesus Christ: 'Blessed be The GOD AND FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.'—Eph. i. 3. 'That THE GOD OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, The Father Of Glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom.'— Eph. i. 17; etc.
It ought also to be borne in remembrance that the ancient prophets all represent the Messiah as speaking of Jehovah as HIS GOD: 'My judgment is with Jehovah, and my work with MY GOD;' and again: 'MY GOD shall be my strength.'—Isa. xlix. 4, 5; etc. Then Jesus, even when in heaven, and seated at God's right hand, still speaks of God as HIS GOD: 'Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of MY GOD . . . and I will write upon him the name of MY GOD,' etc.—Rev. iii. 12.
All such teaching is quite incompatible with the doctrine of a Trinity.
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