The Mystery of the "Godhead"!
by Robert Schmid
Years ago I came across a booklet by the
title: IS JESUS IN THE GODHEAD OR IS THE GODHEAD IN JESUS?
Written by Gordon Magee. The title was confusing to me because
I was not familiar with the word “Godhead.” The
obvious meaning of the word “Godhead” (at least
to me) was that it is talking about the “Head of God.”
Then I searched my Bible where the word “Godhead”
is used, but low and behold the word was not in my (RSV) Bible.
Further research revealed that the word “Godhead”
is used three times (Acts 17:29, Rom. 1:20, Col. 2:9) in the
KJV and not in most other translations.
What then do other translations use in place
of “Godhead” and what exactly does the word “Godhead”
mean? The Greek words theiotes and
theotes are translated in various
translations as: “the Deity,” “deity,”
“God,” “the divine being,” “divine
nature,” “divinity,” “Divine Nature,”
“Gottheit” in German and are so defined in most
Lexicons.
However, in addition to the use of the word
“Godhead” in the KJV, I have found that the word
“Godhead” is freely and often used in Statements
of Beliefs, in write-ups on the Nature of God and of Christ,
and particularly in papers that (try to) explain the trinity
doctrine. The question is: Why is the word “Godhead”
used so frequently in non-biblical writings?
In the Catholic Encyclopedia on The Blessed
Trinity it says: “The Trinity is the
term employed to signify the central doctrine of the Christian
religion – the truth that in the unity of the Godhead
there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from
another.” Writing about the baptismal formula, they
say: “It has already been shown that the words as prescribed
by Christ (Matthews 28:19) clearly express the Godhead
of the Three Persons as well as their distinction.”
From a write-up on The Godhead we
read: “Although the word ‘trinity’
is not in the Bible, the concept of the three-in-one, the
triune God, is. The term ‘Godhead,’
referring to the three-in-one, can be found
in Acts 17:29 and Colossians 2:9.”
Let’s remember that the Greek words
theiotes and theotes
(that are just derivatives of the Greek theios)
are defined as: “The Deity,” “divinity,”
“the divine being” and “Divine Nature.”
In other words, each one of these definitions simply designate
the Creator – “God,” whereas, in Catholic
theology these two words, translated “Godhead”
(in the KJV), denote primarily the (false) idea of three-in-one,
i.e., the word “Godhead” is used
primarily as a synonym for the word “Trinity.”
Let’s now consider the teachings of
Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA) and the (pre 1995) Worldwide Church
of God (WCG). As is well known, HWA/WCG rejected the trinity
doctrine on the basis that the Holy Spirit is not a third
Person in the Godhead. HWA in his book MYSTERY
OF THE AGES wrote in Chapter 1 entitled: Who and What
Is God? “Many think God is a single individual supreme
Personage.” He wrote: “Long before anything else
existed, there did exist two Supreme Beings, immortal, who
ALWAYS had existed.” And, “So here we
find revealed originally two Personages. One is God. And with
God in that prehistoric time was another Personage who also
was God – one who later was begotten and born as Jesus
Christ.” This is plain and simply polytheism!
Whereas Catholicism claims that there is ONE God in THREE
persons, HWA clearly taught that there were TWO Gods in the
beginning.
Of course, HWA did not profess a belief in
polytheism, rather than he, as does Catholicism/Protestantism,
claimed to be monotheistic, notwithstanding the teaching of
TWO or THREE persons (literally Gods) in the Godhead.
How did HWA/WCG deal with this inconsistency
of claiming to believe in ONE God and at the same time claim
that there were TWO Gods? Before we can answer this, we need
to establish another teaching of HWA, from the same book and
chapter that is necessary to understand the problem. He wrote:
“But these two Personages (Gods) were spirit, which
is invisible to human eyes unless supernaturally manifested.
Yet, at the time described in verse one (of Gen. 1 and John
1) Jesus was not the Son of God and God was
not his Father.”
Let’s understand; Catholicism/Trinitarianism
(falsely) claims that God as Father and God
as Son always existed. HWA (correctly) claimed that
no Father and no Son existed
in Gen. 1:1 and John 1:1. What that means, however, is that
since there was no Father and no Son, then, obviously there
was no God Family either. That raises the
question: what was the relationship between the TWO Gods HWA
spoke of? No answer has ever been given to this question.
To be sure, HWA often wrote of God and the “Spokesman,”
but that is not describing a family relationship and the word
“Spokesman,” used only in the KJV of Aaron, needs
to be considered in more detail.
What is the underlying issue in all of this?
It is the question whether Jesus Christ pre-existed
His birth through Mary, His mother, 2000 years ago! Both,
Catholicism/Protestantism based on the trinity doctrine, and
HWA/WCG based on the twinity doctrine, affirm and teach that
Jesus Christ existed before He was born as
a separate center of thought, as a second person (God) in
the Godhead. But, is that a Biblical teaching?
Where does the idea of existence before birth come from? To
be sure, there are scripture verses that seem to support such
an idea, but, scripture verses are subject to (human) interpretation
and can and are being used to support contradictory conclusions
(read: My Scripture vs. Your
Scripture!).
The idea of life before birth
(re-incarnation) and life after death (immortality
of the soul) has been a human desire from the beginning, and
is very much a part of human, Babylonian mythology. But the
Biblical fact, verified by God’s creation, is that
birth means beginning and death means end!
Rom. 1:19-20 says that: “…that
which may be known of God is manifest in them (men); for God
hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him
(God) from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power
and Godhead (deity); so that they
are without excuse.” God made/created in Adam and
Eve the process of procreation/birth which is always a beginning
not only for man(kind), but also for the God(kind), i.e.,
for Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, as the Son of God had a beginning
when He was sired by His father God and born of His mother
Mary.
However, Jesus Christ did pre-exist His birth,
but, not as Jesus Christ, not as the Son (of God), not as
a second person in a Godhead, not as the Spokesman, no, He
existed as the Word (of God), and the Word (of God) was always
with God and the Word (of God) was God. 2000 years ago the
Word (of God) BECAME the Son (of God) which was the beginning
of the ONE God Family (read: The
Biblical Trinity – ONE God). God and the
Bible are 100% monotheistic from beginning to end. There was
only ONE God in the Old Testament, Yahweh
Elohim, and there is only ONE God Family
in the New Testament, consisting of God the Father, the first
born Son Jesus and many begotten Sons that will become born
Sons of God by a resurrection.
How did HWA/WCG justify a TWO God model in
Old Testament time? That was accomplished by translating the
singular English word “God” of Gen. 1:1, into
the Hebrew word “Elohim” which he labeled a “uniplural
noun,” allowing for more than one God in the Godhead/Family
(but, keep in mind that he also taught that in O.T. time there
was not yet a Father and a Son, i.e., no Family of God).
Then, HWA did the same in the New Testament
with the clearly non-personal word “Word” in John
1:1, translating it into the Greek word “logos”
and “logos” into the personal word “Spokesman,”
i.e., Jesus Christ. But, John 1:1 does not say: In the beginning
was (he) Jesus Christ, it says: In the beginning
was (it) the Word!
IT, the Word was not a pre-existent
Jesus, was not a second God in a Godhead. IT,
the Word was God, just like your word is you.
Consider that “the WORD of God is living and active,
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division
of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the
thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Just because
HE, the SPIRIT of God is our Comforter, does
not make HIM a third person in the Godhead!
Just as the Spirit of God and the Wisdom
of God are personified in scripture, so is the Word
of God personified and whatever personal attributes
or personal pro-nouns are used are but the personal attributes
of the ONE God - Yahweh Elohim.
In other words John 1:1 addresses what was
“in the beginning,” which was
the ONE God and (it) His Word. Then, beginning with
John 1:2 it addresses what was “then,”
which was Jesus (He) the Son, the “Spokesman”
for God, whose beginning/birth is clearly described in the
previous three gospels.
The “three-in-one” trinity and
the “two-in-one” twinity teachings force Theologians
into mysterious and illogical explanations to define what
the relationship of the Son is to the Father. Who can comprehend
a teaching that claims that there is only one God not
two (or three), but that there are two (or three) individuals
in the one Godhead?” The teaching that Jesus pre-existed
His birth, raises unanswerable questions and produces insurmountable
obstacles to understand God.
So, what is the answer to the original question:
“Is Jesus in the Godhead or is the Godhead in Jesus?”
All I can say is that there can be no correct answer to a
false question!
When Jesus Christ asked His disciples (and
by extension you and me): “Who do men say that I
the son of man am?” They said, “Some
say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah
or one of the prophets.” He said to them (and to
you and me), “But who do YOU say that I am?”
Peter replied for all of us when he said: “You
are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus then confirmed that the answer was correct when He said:
“Blessed are you, Simon Barjona! Flesh and blood
has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”
Considering that the answer was confirmed
by Jesus personally, we can be sure that the answer was not
only correct, but complete, in order to know that, “Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus did not pre-exist in a Godhead (say trinity or twinity),
Jesus was the firstborn Son of God, who undoubtedly pre-existed
in the Head of God, planned and anticipated
from the foundation of the world, as all of God’s children
are.
The mystery of the “Godhead”
has now been demystified, for there is no “godhead,”
no “trinity,” no “twinity” and no
“ism’s.” There was but ONE God
and His Word from eternity and throughout Old Testament time,
and there is but ONE God Family, God the
Father, and His firstborn Son Jesus the Christ, and many begotten
children, in New Testament time and throughout eternity.
Therefore, “I consider that the
sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with
the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation (and
God the Father and our elder brother, and all the angels)
wait(s) with eager longing for the revealing of the Sons
of God” (Rom. 8:18).
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