Are Oneness Pentecostals Modalists?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: 1 Timothy 3:16, 1 Corinthians 12, John 10:30, John 14

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--are-oneness-pentecostals-modalists
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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all right modalism is a theological term that's invented by contemporary theologians say of the 19th and 20th centuries and they apply it back to people who lived in the 2 third and fourth centuries to describe their Doctrine so it's not a term that those people use and in fact with few minor exceptions we don't have any of the writings of those people are called mol so we don't really know for sure exactly what they believe we only know from the description of their opponents which let's imagine that all you had were the writing of trinitarians as to what oness theology is how accurate would you understand great Point okay so what I'm saying is the ter modalism is couple steps removed from you know scripture so first of all it's a modern term used by Church historians and theologians describe something and they primarily app apply it to an ancient doctrine that we only know indirectly from their opponents so we probably have an incomplete um understanding so from that perspective I don't call myself a modalist although as we can discuss there are some affinities to some of these ancient teachers some similarity I should say or some commonalities or some valid points but I don't want to use the term modalist for myself because now I'm adopting somebody else's label about somebody else's doctrine that I don't fully know and I'm afraid I'll be judged and the Practical reason why people want to call us modalist is this here's their Theory okay modalism has already been deemed an ancient heresy by the church so we don't need to talk about anymore you are modess therefore you're Heretics therefore we don't need to talk Bible with you therefore we don't need to discuss what you believe because you're Heretics well obviously they're trying to use that label to close off discussion whereas we're trying to say let's go back to the Bible our source is of what is right is not modern historians or theologians our source is not even ancient writers and teachers our source is God to be the Bible itself and more particularly uh the teaching of the New Testament Church so let's move the discussion to scriptural terms and scriptural discussion and so that's why we usually call ourselves Oneness in the sense of one God uh or we'll call ourselves Apostolic in the sense of like the apostles and we prefer to be evaluated based on what the scriptures say not based on what some ancient Church figures might said might have said or what some Modern historians might have said about ancient historians

they're definitely parallels now let me go a little bit further the term modalist is is used to mean modes so this is their interpretation this is not what the ancient teachers said but what modern theologians say is well these ancient teachers denied that God was three different persons instead they thought of God as three different modes so the father operating in one mode the Son operating in another mode Spirit operating in another mode now it might be very similar to the term we use manifestations which we do have scriptural uh basis for that the son is indeed God manifest In the Flesh in human identity 1 Timothy 3:16 the holy spirit is the manifestation of God in our midst you know 1 Corinthians 12 talks about the manifestation of the spirit we we might say is is being father really a manifestation I mean God is the father father but that is a term of relationship you know you know a father implies children so he is Father not in his inner nature so to speak but in relationship to his created order um so in that sense you can say you know God is manifesting himself or revealing himself as father so I think these are terms of relationship uh to us in terms of Revelation to us uh but I don't like the term persons I don't think it's accurate because that implies a self-conscious being or Center of Consciousness which would would be tritheism which would be directly contrary to the teaching of the Bible and if you redefine persons in some esoteric way as Mainline trinitarians say well person but not in the sense of modern persons or not in the sense of human persons then you make it meaningless and then they do Retreat so I say what does do you mean well it's a mystery well I think that's unsatisfying because you know many things in the Bible we may understand until we get to heaven but knowing who God is knowing who we worship knowing who we pray to knowing who we expect to see in heaven we can't relegate that to a mystery it's revealed that there's one God with no distinction of persons so I think persons is inadequate and flawed now I will hasten to add that because of this description of modes then a big critique of ancient modalism is this well you have a hidden God that nobody can see and he wears the mask of Father then he takes it off wears the mask of son then he takes it off wears the mask of holy spirit so we never know the truth god well I don't really think that's an accurate explanation of the ancient modalist but if it is it's not an accurate representation of us that's not what we believe we believe the one God is revealed in Jesus Christ so it's not a mysterious God hidden behind mask it's one God who while he's related to us in different ways for the purposes of our Salvation he's essentially revealed in all of his fullness as the Lord Jesus Christ and we do understand he is our father in the sense he created us he provides a Plan of Salvation he came in flesh as the son uh to uh to redeem us and so he had to be the father of the son and he works in our lives as the Holy Spirit to apply the work of God to our lives today so we can understand Father Son and Holy Ghost are three relationships or three means by which God has worked our salvation but the essential Revelation is one personal God known the Old Testament as Yahweh but revealed in the flesh as Jesus Christ the son of God who is actually the true God himself uh manif ested in human identity okay so to go back to your question while we don't know what the ancient modalist believe from their own statements they the trinitarian opponents quoted them particularly trulan who's the first person actually to use the Latin word Trinity he did not have the full concept of co-equal persons because he had the father superior to the other two persons but he was the first one to really speak clearly of three persons in one substance and Trinity well he uh he wrote a book against praus and he quoted statements of praus who uses some of the same things that we use John 10:30 I and my father are one John 14 if you've seen me you've seen the father and he tried to tulan ridicules praus and these followers so these are the people called the modalist okay he ridicules them by saying now although and I'm paraphrasing here you can read it in my book if you want a detailed explanation my book Oneness and Trinity ad 100 to 300 will go in great detail or in a little more summary form my book a history of Christian doctrine volume 1 and then if you want to see how the doctrine of Trinity actually played out I have another little book called the trinitarian controversy in the 4th Century so those three books will talk about the ancient modalist but I have in a detailed examination of of tertullian's a writing called against praus and he says you know the simple people who are always the majority they think my Doctrine is a contradiction of scripture but actually my Doctrine is right they don't understand the Divine economy well in an offhand way he's admitted that the vast majority in his day about ad2 200 did not accept his new doctr of the Trinity but accepted the doctr he's attacking and he's so he calls him the simple and unlearned and they think the father came down as the son and he goes on you can see some of the same caricatures of modern Oneness but in essence reading between the lines and comparing there various other people who wrote about these modalist and of course there might have been different beliefs among the modalist but you had praus sabellius uh and and very various others uh but uh it seems what they did hold in common they did believe in the absolute deity of Jesus Christ so they weren't Aryans they weren't unitarians believe that Jesus was truly God that's the first point and we would agree with that second point they did not believe God was three persons but they believe somehow that Jesus Christ was the fullness of God there one of them quoted uh the father is not the son the father is in the son one God everywhere so they seem to have a more sophisticated thing understanding that many historians don't seem recognize they're not saying the father is the son or the father changed into the son that's often said well first he was the father then he changed in the son then he changed in the spirit well that would be very simplistic and erroneous because like when Jesus praying to the Father the father didn't change into the son there's the father and there's the son but the more sophisticated statements that are quoted do recognize we're not confusing Father and Son we're saying the father is God the son is God as he came in the flesh we're not denying that distinction but we're saying Jesus is the full God so on the two key points of there's only one God with no distinction of persons and Jesus is the true God manifest the flesh uh those points are important to us those are our two key tenants of one is theology it seems that the modalist held those two key tenants now how whe whether they're all their theology matches ours or not we can't really say and certainly some of the things are attributed to them like God is hidden behind three m we would reject that the father changed into the son who changed into the spirit we reject that so we definitely reject some of the doctrines that are attributed to modalist even though I have my doubts as whether they actually said those things or not but on the two key points that are essential to Oneness we do find it seems agreement with quite a few and not just tertullian but a number of the other a authors say in the 2 Century this was actually the vast majority of all Believers and the doct of the Trinity was seen as an innovation even into the third the second and third centuries really two centuries the vast majority of Believers would have aligned with what is called modalism and would have rejected trulan origin and the other early trinitarians so in that sense it's a very interesting study of church history but I do not use the label because I think it leads to misunderstanding and I want to be evaluated on our teaching of scripture let's discuss scripture and let's decide what the Bible teaches