To reject the theory (not “doctrine” or teaching, e.g., to show or explain) that the one God is a Trinity does not diminish the uniquely procreated human Son of God. In Scripture, he remains God’s appointed lord Messiah—not the LORD God (Matt 16:16; John 20:31)—the one exalted to God’s right hand (adoni not Adonai, Ps 110:1) and the only mediator between God and humanity, who is himself a human person (1 Timothy 2:5). None of these New Testament truths requires identifying the Son with the only One who is “true God,” the Father (John 17:3).
Christians are commanded to test religious claims by Scripture (Deuteronomy 13; John 7:24; Acts 17:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:21; 1 John 4:1). Testing the Trinity is therefore not heresy, but obedience. Christians will not be judged by adherence to post-biblical conciliar creeds, but according to the “obedience of faith” and a “love of the truth” revealed by God and taught by His Son (Romans 1:5; 16:26; 2 Thessalonians 2:9–10).
The proper starting and end point will forever remain what Jesus himself called the foremost commandment: the Shema (Mark 12:29). Shema is a Hebrew word to which some ancient scribes attached special significance, treating its letters as an abbreviation. Read in reverse order, the letters were associated with the Hebrew phrase ol malkhut shamayim, meaning “the yoke [ol] of the Kingdom [malkhut] of Heaven [shamayim].”
This tradition provides the background to Jesus’ words to the scribe who agreed that the Shema is “the first and greatest of all the commandments”:
“You are not far from the Kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34).
