Jews & Muslims Get THIS Wrong About Jesus (Wes Huff Explains Trinity)

0:00 The father is described as Yahweh God. The son is described as Yahweh God. And the spirit is described as Yahweh God. We don't believe in three Yahwehes, right? Only one Yahweh here. Israel, the Lord is God. The Lord is one God. So, how do we then parse this out in a way that is coherent, that is theologically and philosophically um valid. Wesley Huff recently went on the Michael Nolles show and addressed 10 big misconceptions that popular culture holds about the Bible. I'm going to feature one of them in this video where Wes is talking about Jesus and his divinity and how central is the understanding of the Trinity to Christianity. I'm going to let him cook as they say for a few minutes here and then he references this hands acronym as

0:45 a way of understanding the divinity of Jesus, but he doesn't really unpack it. And so after he's laid the foundation here, I'm going to build on top of it and give you guys sort of like the receipts for this hands acronym. Let's get into it. Okay. Now, what do you say about uh similar claim that the trinity is not in scripture that the trinity is actually just invented centuries later? And I mean, you know, you do actually hear this from people who today would call themselves Christian. small group but but still you you do hear that uh who deny the trinity which as far as I'm concerned is the central mystery of the faith. Yeah, I would agree. I I don't think you can have Christianity without trinitarianism. I think the uh father

1:30 sending the son in the power of the spirit and the self-giving of himself and then empowering believers to then live a Christfilled life is essential to the Christian faith. I I don't think you can have anything other than that and it be historical biblical Christianity. Now, uh this accusation often goes in kind of the vein of people saying that the word trinity is not in the Bible, which I'm totally fine with because the word monotheism is not in the Bible either and the Bible is clearly monotheistic, right? So, it's not that we have to find it's kind of the fallacy of specificity in terms of language. The early Christians are coming up with ideas. Okay. The father is described as Yahweh God. The son is described as Yahweh God. And the spirit is described

2:15 as Yahweh God. We don't believe in three Yahwehes, right? Only one Yahweh here. Israel, the Lord is God. The Lord is one God. So, how do we then parse this out in a way that is coherent, that is theologically and philosophically u valid. And so, that's what you get in terms of the trinitarian conversations. But I think it's all there. Uh, one of my favorite ways of describing this is by the scholars Rob Bowman and Ed Kamjowski um, who actually just published an updated version of their book uh, Christ and his critics in that they come up with this acronym hands hs that the father, the son, and the spirit are all given the honors, attributes, names, deeds, and seat of God. And if you go through, you can find all of those in describing God. The father is

3:01 given the honors, attributes, names, deeds, and seat. The son is given the honors, attributes, names, deeds, and seat. And the spirit is given the honors, attributes, names, deeds, and seat. And those are things that are only given to God. We see throughout the Old Testament. And I would even argue that God is complex within his unity in the Old Testament, too. And that the ancient Jews would not have had a problem with this because you get passages where Abraham is dialoguing by the oaks of Mamra with Yahweh. And then Yahweh goes on after the two other angels have gone down to Sodom and Gomorrah. And then it says, I believe it's in um Genesis 18 or 19 where it says, "Yahweh on earth rains fire and brimstone from Yahweh in heaven." You're like, "Wait, hold on. There aren't two Yahwehs." So what's going on there? And throughout the Old Testament,

3:47 you have the presence of God in the shina glory on the ark. And yet God is ruling and reigning in heaven. So there's a tangible presence that is on earth. And there is a presence that is ruling the universe in glory. we would say as the father, right? We could argue that that's like a pre-incarnate. It's a it's a pre it's a christography, right? You know, you have theophanes, you have christophanes. And so I think God within his within his complex unity is described all throughout the Bible, all of the books of the Bible, old and new testaments. But then it's found in its culmination in describing, right? John 1:14, you know, the word was made flesh and made his dwelling among us. But then

4:32 John 1:18 that and no one has ever seen God at any point in time. And yet the one and only God, he has made him who is in the bosom of the father. He has made him known. He's executed him is actually the word in Greek. He's he brings out who the father is. And so the trinity is all there um right down to Jesus's baptism where the father, you know, is heard from heaven, the spirit descends, and then you have the son being baptized. And then we're told to then baptize in the ona, the singular noun name of the father, the son, and the spirit. And so you have the one name, but then three persons are described. And it doesn't really seem to matter if the word trinity shows up because you know what else is not named in the Bible. I it occurs to me the Bible. The Bible is not named in the Bible. There's no there's no list of canon in the

5:19 Bible. And yet we we all think that the the Bible matters to the faith, don't we? Yeah. Yeah, I think we, you know, these demands of specificity miss the point in that we can come up with language. I believe in the hypoatic union and we that doesn't mean that I'm going outside of the Bible that I'm I'm and that I'm limited to biblical language. Uh I think that's a rather foolish argument to you know constrain our ability to describe what's going on in scripture simply by scripture. That doesn't mean that scripture isn't sufficient. It just means that there are ways that we kind of come up with how we describe the truth that's in there, but describe it in a way that is understood. Wes references this acronym hands, which again stands for honors, attributes,

6:06 names, deeds, and seat, but because he's in a live interaction here with Michael Nolles, he doesn't really go into that much detail to unpack what this acronym is really about. So, I'm going to do that here. I've written down sort of a distillation of how this acronym works to make a case for Jesus's divinity in scripture. So, let's begin with the first one, H, honors. The Bible is crystal clear that worship is to belong to God alone. Going all the way back to Deuteronomy 6:13, which says, "Worship the Lord your God and serve him only." Yet, Jesus accepts worship in multiple places throughout his ministry from his disciples. For example, in Matthew 14:33, after he calms the storm, the disciples fall down and worship Jesus,

6:52 declaring, "Truly, you are the son of God." Also, in John 20:28, Thomas sees the risen Jesus and proclaims, "My Lord and my God." And Jesus again doesn't stop him from saying that. Jesus receives that. Also, Hebrews 1:6 even commands angels to worship Jesus. So if Jesus isn't God, then accepting worship is clearly blasphemous. But he and again, he doesn't correct his disciples. He welcomes their worship. So that would be the first line of evidence. The honors of God, the worship of God, the honors of God are shared by Jesus. Next, a the attributes. Jesus has qualities that only God possesses. He's a He's eternal according to John 1:1 which says, "In the beginning was the word and

7:39 the word was with God and the word was God." And as if you recall a recent video on this channel with Dan Wallace, he says that that phraseiology is in that exact order in every single manuscript that we have of John. That the word was God. That the word who is Jesus who entered into the world as in if just read John 1 if you don't know what I'm talking about. So this is this is affirming that Jesus as the word is is um eternal in nature. Also Jesus tells us that he is all powerful. And Matthew 28:18 it says all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Okay. Furthermore, he's all knowing. Peter says in John 21:17,

8:26 quote, "Lord, you know everything." and his love according to Romans 8:35-39 says that nothing can separate us from it. The these are not human traits. These are uh the fingerprints of divinity if you will. This is these are the the attributes of God that are also shared by Jesus. So next let's go to in the names. So the Bible gives Jesus titles reserved for God alone. For example, John 20:28, Thomas calls him God outright, and I already referenced that, my Lord and my God. Um, Acts 1:24 addresses him as Lord in a divine sense, echoing the Old Testament names for Yahweh. Revelation 19:16 crowns him King

9:12 of Kings and Lord of Lords, a title that God first uh establishes in Deuteronomy 10:17. Uh he's called savior also in Luke 2:11 and the first and the last in revelation 1:17 a name God uses for himself in Isaiah 44:6. These are not coincidences. These are also not nicknames. These are divine claims throughout the New Testament that place Jesus on exactly the same footing as the father showing us that Yahweh is a is a tripersonal being. He's a He's a um what would you say? Not an individual, but a trend individual maybe. So, let's go to the fourth one here. D. So, we've got so

9:58 far, just to refresh, we've got the honors, the attributes, the names. Now, we're to the deeds, the D of hand deeds. And when we look at um what Jesus can do, uh for example, in John 1:3, it says through him all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. So he is literally the creator. Like John John 1 is literally telling us Jesus is the creator is the simplest way I can put it. Hebrews 1:3 declares he sustains all things by his powerful word. He forgives sins also according to Matthew 9 1-8. Um we see him forgiving a paralytic prompting the crowd to glorify him. We see he gives eternal life according to John 5:21

10:44 which says the son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it to. So we have creation, sustenance, forgiveness, lifegiving. These are again God deeds that Jesus also does. Should at the very least cause us to kind of pause and wonder if something is being communicated here much more than again just good moral teacher or just another prophet as is thought in Judaism in in Islam. Uh seat the the final one here um S is for seat. Jesus shares God's throne. Uh Hebrews 8:1 says he's seated at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. And again, the right hand uh in this sense is sharing the throne. Not sitting next to the throne, but on the

11:29 very throne of the majesty in heaven. Revelation 3:21 affirms this uh and has Jesus saying Jesus says, "I sat down with my father on his throne." with my father on his throne. Revelation 5:13 shows all creation worshiping the father and the lamb that is Jesus together. The father and the lamb are being worshiped together. In in the ancient world sharing the king's throne meant sharing his authority. Jesus doesn't just sit near God. He is on the throne of God ruling as God reigning over all creation as God. uh he is again the alpha and the omega, the creator, the sustainer, the redeemer and the finisher of of the human story. And so again, it's sort of

12:16 I've used this analogy before, but it's sort of like you have picture Clark Kent um in all these ways um showing the the honors, the attributes, the names, the deeds, the seat of of Superman, but never saying I am Clark Kent. My true identity is Superman. But you understand that that is the case in light of all of the aforementioned evidence. Something very similar in my opinion is going on here with Jesus in scripture. And might I add one other thing. We say, well, why doesn't he just come out and say it in a bit more of a clear manner. The plot itself tells you why. So many different times. He says, "My hour has not yet come. Do not tell anybody my true identity." Actually, demons understand his true identity. Demons literally literally say, "Has the time come? are

13:03 you are you going to and he says no it it hasn't yet I'm on a top secret mission for the time being so I command you to not tell anybody who I really am so the plot gives you the reason for some of the discretion around some of these things and yet the original Christians clearly understood it the resurrection clearly affirms it Jesus isn't just a prophet is not just a teacher Jesus is and has shown himself to be um the creator the sustainer the redeemer and the True God. That's actually very simple. Your household, statistically speaking, spends about $100 per month on products like soap, deodorant, those little vitamin C packets, etc. The problem is that most of us buy these products from places like Target, Amazon, and so on.

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