Modalism

Several years ago, after I spoke on the trinity at a church Bible study, one of the members of the class came up to me and said, “I believe God is just one Person wearing three hats, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”  I told him he was in error and explained briefly some of what you will read below.

The error this gentleman believed is called modalism, the belief God is just one divine Person who relates to us in three ways, as the Father, as the Son, and as the Holy Spirit.  The longer I’ve been a Christian, the more I’ve run into this belief, so I’m going to address it here.

In philosophy, there is a law called the Law of Identity, also known as the Law of Non-contradiction.  It says that “A” cannot be “non-A” at the same time, under the same circumstances, and in the same way.  To put it simply, each of us is similar to one another in many ways, but there are always differences.  Twins are not the same person although can they seem to be.

If two things are exactly alike in every way, they are equal to the same thing.  We see this in simple manufacturing.  I have two No. 2 pencils on my desk.  To all appearances, they are exactly alike.  But, on closer examination, they are not.  There are minor differences.  Even if there were no differences, they would not be logically called identical because they do not occupy the same space.  This is a little picky, but logic is picky in order to be successfully used.

So, with all that said, simply showing there is some difference between, say, the Father and the Son, we can show they are not the same Person.  In the rest of this post, I’ll present evidence they are not identical.

Isa. 44:6 identifies two Persons, one identifies Himself as YHWH and identifies the other as YHWH as well.  Though they are different Persons, they are both called YHWH (God)

⁶  Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts:   “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.

Whenever you see the word “LORD” in all caps as we see twice in this verse, it represents the divine name, YHWH.  Both “the King of Israel” and “His Redeemer, the LORD of hosts” are identified as God yet also as separate persons.

In Matt. 24:36, Jesus says the Father knows something He Himself does not know, the date of His return:

³⁶ “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

You can see the contradiction if someone knew something and also didn’t know it. It simply doesn’t make sense.

There are many more passages and other points Scripture makes showing Jesus and the Father are not the same Person.  They have different wills (Luke 22:42), they are in different locations at the same time (Matt. 5:44-45), And many other differences.

The biblical view of God is that He is one Being (Isa 43:10-11) but three distinct Persons, the Father (Gal. 1:1), the Son (Heb 1:8), and the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3-4).  The one God exists in three Persons.

Why is this important?

If modalism were true, the Father died on the cross.  The most important issue, though, would be the modalist would have a view of Christ different than the Bible presents.  That may be different enough that salvation is not in the Christ they believe in.