Two Oneness Pentecostals, Pastor Scott Phillips and Dr. Mike Dobbs make some claims that cry out for response. So here goes…
Joel 2:28
At 3:43 in the first video (take the time to rewind to it) we see Dr. Mike Dobbs make a claim concerning the word ‘afterward’ in Joel 2:28. He begins by making a gross generalization in stating that we really don’t think about the words we are reading and then he proceeds to break the word down into two parts, ‘after’ and ‘ward’ respectively. He goes on to say that the word ‘ward’ means:
“the coming together of many people; it’s the assembling; and it indicates in that Greek word not just assembling together, but assembling together in thought, in mind, in purpose, and in belief structure.”
He surmises that this all means that after everyone comes together that God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh.
The problem with this claim is that Joel was written in Hebrew originally and the term used was not Greek. The exact phrase is אַחֲרֵי-כֵן and does not mean anything even remotely close to what Dr. Dobbs has suggested but actually means what it is translated as—‘afterward’ or ‘after this.’ Now I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and grant that perhaps he was speaking of the LXX which of course is an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, but even there the word used is μετὰ and just means ‘after.’ Dr. Dobbs has completely fabricated a definition to suit his purposes. This may seem like a minor point but it speaks to his methodology and exposes his hermeneutic as suspect. Scripture for him is something subjective where definitions can be applied to words based on nothing more than a fanciful idea.
The Council of Nicaea
At 5:50 in the video Dr. Dobbs begins to speak about a trip he took to Asia Minor and specifically talks about Nicaea, claiming that this is the place:
“where the councils begin to come together and begin to change the doctrine and trying to merge the doctrine with the existing pagan teachings that were going on there. It was the beginning of the division. And for the next 140 years it would continue until 441 A.D. when they would finally come to some sort of understanding of the Athanasian Creed, and say ok this is what we believe.”
This betrays a severe lack of understanding of the purpose of the First Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church as well as what was at stake. Allow me to very briefly state the two opposing positions that led up to the formation of this council. There was a doctrinal dispute between Alexander the Bishop of Alexandria and one of his presbyters, a man named Arius. Alexander taught that “the Son, as Son, is co-eternal with the Father, since God can never have been without His Word, His Wisdom, His Power, His Image, and the Father must always have been Father.”1 Kenneth Scott Latourette briefly summarizes Arius’ position saying that “Arius maintained that ‘the Son has a beginning but that God was without beginning’ and the Son is not a part of God.”2
We are told by Dr. Dobbs that this was “the beginning of division” when in fact the Emperor Constantine convened the council to bring unity to a fragmented Empire. J.N.D. Kelly notes, “after the capitulation of Licinius in 324 Constantine turned his attention to the affair [i.e., Arian controversy], determined to re-establish doctrinal unity in the Church.”3 Doctrine did not begin to change at the Council of Nicaea, but rather it was re-affirmed and given official definition.
At 7:00 in the video Dr. Dobbs says:
“And when I went to Nicaea it just came so real to me that that was the place where the uh Timaeus doctrine was started, the Trinitas, and all of that that began in 335 A.D. and history bears it out.”
In point of fact history bears out no such information. Aside from dating the council a decade too late, Dr. Dobbs shows no hints of interaction with the writings of the Ante-Nicene fathers of the Church or even with the Biblical arguments presented as evidence for the Trinity. Phillip Schaff rightly noted in his History of the Christian Church:
The doctrine of the holy Trinity, for instance, was believed from the beginning, but it required, in addition to the preparatory labors of the ante-Nicene age, fifty years of controversy, in which the strongest intellects were absorbed, until it was brought to the clear expression of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.4
Baptism
At 8:07 we are told by Pastor Phillips that:
“a large part of the, the religious world that they are the blind leading the blind because they, they no longer really read the scripture for what it says, they believe in these councils, the council of Nicaea, the doctrine of the Trinity, the baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, uh ya know this, these a lot of people don’t understand that in the first 300 years of Christian history everybody was baptized in Jesus’ name, not just in the book of Acts but for the 300 years of Church history everyone was baptized in Jesus’ name.”
Is this an accurate account of the first 300 years of Church history? Not at all! The Didache which according to Nelson’s Dictionary of Christianity is “the earliest church order document, of unknown authorship, dated roughly to 100 [A.D.]”5 gives instruction on baptism in the 7th chapter saying:
And concerning baptism, thus baptize ye: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if thou have not living water, baptize into other water; and if thou canst not in cold, in warm. But if thou have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit. (Didache 7:1-3)6
Notice the agreement here with Matthew 28:19 both of which use the phrase εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος (in/into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit). This alone is enough to refute the assertion made above, but I will continue.
Justin Martyr (A.D. 160)
Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. (First Apology, LXI)7
Tertullian (A.D. 213)
He commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, not into a unipersonal God. And indeed it is not once only, but three times, that we are immersed into the Three Persons, at each several mention of Their names. (Against Praxeas, XXVI)
Cyprian (A.D. 250)
But if any one objects, by way of saying that Novatian holds the same law which the Catholic Church holds, baptizes with the same symbol with which we baptize, knows the same God and Father, the same Christ the Son, the same Holy Spirit, and that for this reason he may claim the power of baptizing, namely, that he seems not to differ from us in the baptismal interrogatory; let any one that thinks that this may be objected, know first of all, that them is not one law of the Creed, nor the same interrogatory common to us and to schismatics. (Epistle LXXV, 7)8
The historical evidence is overwhelmingly against the position that these ministers have chosen to maintain. In the next three installments we will see more of the same.
B”H
1 Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines, Revised Edition, (Peabody, MA: Prince, 2004), 224.
2 Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of Christianity, Vol. 1: to A.D. 1500, (Peabody, MA: Prince, 2005), 153. For a more detailed account of Arius’ teaching see Kelly’s Early Christian Doctrines, 225-231.
3 Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 231. [Brackets mine]
4 Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 1: Apostolic Christianity, A.D. 1-100, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, rpt. 2006), 10.
5 “Didache” in Nelson’s Dictionary of Christianity, George Thomas Kurian, ed., (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2005), 213.
6 “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Eds., (Christian Literature, 1886; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, rpt. 2004), 379. [Hereafter cited as ANF]
7 ANF, 1.183.
8 ANF, 5.399
Posted in Apologetics, Oneness Pentecostalism, Trinity
