Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: How Do You Understand the Godhead?

Theology
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I want to respond with clarity and mutual respect. I appreciate your concern for guarding the gospel’s majesty, but I must gently point out that I never said the Father or the Holy Ghost are “erased”—that’s a misrepresentation of my position. In fact, I affirm both fully. What I reject is the idea that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three separate co-equal persons, each with their own mind and will, which is a philosophical framework not rooted in the direct language of Scripture. What I believe—and what Oneness Pentecostals teach—is that the one eternal God revealed Himself in various ways and roles, and that the fullness of His redemptive purpose is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:9).

You mentioned “modal” theology, and I want to be clear: I do not believe like the ancient Modalists, such as Sabellius, who taught that God was one person putting on masks or switching modes sequentially like actors in a play. That view is unbiblical, and I reject it. The Oneness position recognizes that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost can operate simultaneously, because they are not different persons, but different manifestations or roles of the one indivisible God. For example, Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, the voice of the Father spoke from heaven, and the Spirit descended as a dove—three manifestations happening at once, but still one God acting sovereignly in time and space. That’s not Modalism—it’s the omnipresence and multifaceted self-expression of the same God (Isaiah 43:10–11).

So no, I’m not reinventing the gospel—I’m going back to its purest form, preached by Peter on the day of Pentecost. That’s not erasing the Father or the Spirit—it’s embracing them in the name that fully reveals them: Jesus.

I want to respond clearly and respectfully: I have never once claimed that Jesus is merely a temporary manifestation or a “mask” of another divine person. That misrepresents the heart of Oneness theology and the point I’ve made. Colossians 2:9 is a powerful affirmation—“in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily”—and I fully agree with your observation about the Greek verb katoikei being in the present active indicative. That means the fullness of God permanently dwells in Christ, not briefly or symbolically, but continually and completely. The Oneness view holds that Jesus is not a costume God wore for a time; He is the visible, glorified embodiment of the one true God forever (Revelation 1:8, 18).

The “Him” in Colossians 2:9 is indeed the Son—but what is the Son? He is the Word made flesh (John 1:14), the full revelation of the invisible God (Hebrews 1:3), not a second divine person alongside another. The Son is not the mask of the Father; He is the Father revealed (John 14:9–10). This is not disguise—it is incarnation. There’s no recycling of persons here—there’s One eternal Spirit who took on flesh and continues to dwell bodily in the glorified Christ. That’s not minimizing the Son; it’s exalting the identity of Jesus as the complete and eternal revelation of the Godhead.

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[quote=“Johann, post:261, topic:3453”]
Hebrews 1:3 says Christ is the apaugasma (ἀπαύγασμα), radiance of divine glory, and charaktēr (χαρακτήρ), the exact imprint of God’s nature. Radiance is not the source, imprint is not the original. The Son reveals the Father without being the Father.[/quote]
I appreciate your careful handling of the Greek terms in Hebrews 1:3, and you’re right in highlighting apaugasma (radiance) and charaktēr (imprint). But rather than suggesting a separate divine person distinct from the Father, these terms actually reinforce the Oneness understanding when viewed in context. The idea that Jesus is the “radiance” and “exact imprint” of God’s being doesn’t imply He is less than or other than the Father—it means He is the visible revelation of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). If the eternal, invisible Father were to look into a mirror and see Himself reflected in a visible form, He would see Jesus—not another person, but His own image expressed in flesh. The radiance doesn’t exist apart from the source; it is the visible expression of it. The imprint doesn’t exist as a separate being; it is the manifestation of the essence.

Jesus didn’t come to reveal someone else—He came to reveal the Father (John 14:9). And He could say, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” not as a metaphor or misdirection, but as the literal truth of His identity. The Son is not the source simply because the Father is the source, but Jesus is that very source revealed in the form of a man. That’s why Colossians 2:9 says, “in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Not part of it. Not a portion. The fullness.

It’s true that allon in John 14:16 implies “another of the same kind.” But to conclude from that alone that the Holy Spirit is a separate divine person from Christ misunderstands the context and the broader testimony of Scripture. In John 14:16–18, Jesus says, “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.” But just two verses later, He clarifies exactly who this Comforter is: “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (v.18). The “another Comforter” is not someone different in being, but different in mode of presence—the same Jesus, now dwelling with them spiritually after His glorification.

Moreover, Scripture does not leave this identification ambiguous. 2 Corinthians 3:17 says clearly, “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Romans 8:9 says, “If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Here, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ are used interchangeably, not as separate persons, but as one Spirit (Ephesians 4:4). And let’s not overlook Colossians 1:27, which declares the mystery now revealed: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

So when John 15:26 says the Spirit proceeds from the Father and testifies of the Son, that is not a commentary on the eternal subsistence of persons within a divine Trinity—it’s a statement about how the one God reveals and works through His manifestations in the plan of redemption. The Holy Ghost is not someone other than Jesus—it is Jesus in Spirit form, present with and in the believer (John 14:23). That’s not a downgrade of the Spirit—it’s the exaltation of the name above every name

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Ephesians 4:4 states, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call.” This verse emphasizes the unity and shared calling of believers in Christ. It highlights the idea of one body (the church) being united by one Spirit (the Holy Spirit) and called to one hope (eternal life in Christ).

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If you have three centers of consciousness, each with their own will, awareness, and ability to relate independently, then by definition, you no longer have a single, indivisible Being—you have internal division, no matter how you try to label it. Consciousness is not a shared attribute like love or holiness; it’s what makes a person distinct in thought, intention, and identity. To say God is “one being” but with “three distinct centers of consciousness” is not biblical monotheism—it’s tri-personalism, a form of compound being foreign to the language of Scripture. The Bible presents God as one Lord, one Spirit, and one name (Deut. 6:4; Eph. 4:4–6; Zech. 14:9), not as a fellowship of divine minds. Internal division arises the moment you introduce multiple self-aware identities within one essence, because now you have inter-personal dynamics inside of God—something never shown in Scripture but rather imposed by post-biblical philosophy. True oneness means a single will, a single consciousness, and a single identity—fully revealed in Jesus Christ, the visible image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15).

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Chiara, that excerpt is poetic—and powerful—yes, but it isn’t Scripture. It’s a private mystic’s meditation, not divine revelation. I don’t reject its beauty, but I only carve doctrine from the Solid Rock of the Bible:

  • Matthew 28:19 tells us to baptize in one name—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
  • John 1:1‑3 affirms the eternal Word.
  • 1 John 5:7‑8 affirms the three-in-one witness.

Mystical writings like The Notebooks can edify—but they can’t define. They’re meant to stir our soul, not to stand alongside the canon. Let’s keep our theology based on what God actually chose to preserve in the Bible.

Grace and truth, always.

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Let’s stick to the Bible’s teachings, not to some supposed, separate revelation from a source that might or might not be Jesus. The whole Gospel of John has plenty of references to the mysterious Trinity.

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(I) The following are results from the astronomical and meteorological analysis of The Poem of the Man-God by Professor Emilio Matricciani and Dr. Liberato De Caro, where they concluded:

[…] from this study a surprising and unexpected result emerges: Maria Valtorta narration seems to be not a fruit of her fantasy.

It seems that she has written down observations and facts really happened at the time of Jesus’ life, as a real witness of them would have done. The question arises, unsolved from a point of view exclusively rational, how all this is possible because what Maria Valtorta writes down cannot, in any way, be traced back to her fantasy or to her astronomical and meteorological knowledge.

[…] our actual scientific knowledge cannot readily explain how these results are possible.

(II) The following are results from the mathematical analysis of The Poem of the Man-God by Professor Emilio Matricciani and Dr. Liberato De Caro, where they concluded:

In conclusion, what do these findings mean? That Maria Valtorta is such a good writer to be able to modulate the linguistic parameters in so many different ways and as a function of character of the plot and type of literary text, so as to cover almost the entire range of the Italian literature? Or that visions and dictations really occurred and she was only a mystical, very intelligent and talented “writing tool”? Of course, no answer grounded in science can be given to the latter question.

(III) The following is an excerpt from Jean Aulagnier’s book The Diary of Jesus regarding The Poem of the Man-God:

Therefore, there is no explanation for the archeological and geographical accuracy of her writings except an intervention from the beyond. These factors exclude the possibility of a hoax or a mental disorder.

There is no way that Maria Valtorta could have composed thousands of pages of fiction that would be so historically accurate.

(IV)

David J. Webster observed that Valtorta named nine towns and villages that were not discovered until after her death. He posted a landmark 31-page article that fundamentally proves the authenticity of Maria Valtorta’s writings. The Poem of the Man-God may be the very first private revelation ever to be scientifically proven genuine.

In the above article David Webster summarizes his findings below (some of this is similar to what you read on the last page, but this is worded a little differently here):

Of the staggering total of all 255 geographical sites from Palestine mentioned in the Poem 79 (all marked * &**) were not listed in the 1939 International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Atlas which represented the scholarship of her day. 62 (all marked **) of these 79 were listed neither by the ISBE Atlas or the 184-page 1968 McMillan Bible Atlas. Where did Maria Valtorta in the mid 1940’s get all these names? Are they fictitious? Of those 17 missed by the 1939 ISBE but included in the 1968 MBA, 9 have been confirmed by an “ancient external source.” Since then an additional 20 sites have been confirmed in the 1989 HarperCollins Atlas of the Bible. This is a total number of 29 confirmations of the original 79 unknown or obscure geographical 229 sites in Palestine mentioned in the Poem since the ISBE Atlas was published in 1939. 24 of these 29 do not even have an obscure reference in the Bible!

It is to be noted that the Harper Collins Atlas and the McMillan Bible Atlas are among the most significant and widely known atlases. The MacMillan Bible Atlas alone lists well over 1500 specific Palestinian locations. (A Summa and Encyclopedia to Maria Valtorta’s Extraordinary Work)

and so on…

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Peace to all,

The Trinity naming convention seems to be from the Didache, to me.

Where did the names of the persons in the Trinity come from?

Contemporaneous Existence: Tertullian’s apostolic work was around the time the Didache was being written and circulated (mid-late first century).

  • Shared Emphasis: Tertullian’s writings, particularly concerning the Lord’s Prayer, align with the emphasis placed on it in the Didache as a customary prayer within the early Church.
  • Potential Influence: It’s probable that Tertullian’s thoughts on certain matters, particularly liturgical practices like baptism and the Eucharist, were influenced by the Didache, according to Christianity Stack Exchange.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all”

Thomas Aquinas taught that the essence of sanctity lies in the love of God, and Thérèse of Lisieux made the love of God the center of her spirituality.[18]

Thus, free will is granted and limited by God’s sovereignty, but God’s sovereignty allows all men the choice to accept the gospel of Jesus through faith, simultaneously allowing all men to resist.

Koinonia (/ˌkɔɪnoʊˈniːə/),[1] communion , or fellowship in Christianity is the bond uniting Christians as individuals and groups with each other and with Jesus Christ.

Peace always,

Stephen