Unmasking an Anti-Trinitarian Sabellian Disguised as Sovereign Grace Pastor

By Sonny Hernandez

"Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them" (Rom. 16:17, KJV, bold emphasis added)

Introduction

In many sovereign grace circles, biblically illiterate preachers, not knowing the whole counsel of God, will refer to the "righteousness of God alone" as a shibboleth to downplay various essentials of the Christian faith, such as reprobation and Hell as a description of the eternal value of Christ's blood, highlighting what the Savior redeemed His sheep from to the glory of the Triune God alone.

Using the "righteousness of God alone" as a theological litmus test while ignoring the whole counsel of God is a typical Functional Unitarian ploy. What is a Functional Unitarian? To explain, Unitarians, also known as deniers of the Trinity, will focus primarily on one person because their god is unipersonal. In contrast, Functional Unitarians merely give lip service to the Trinity, typically as short sound bites in sermons. Yet, they mainly focus on one person, seemingly to the exclusion of the others, and will not teach [full] substantive sermons on the Ontological Trinity, as most have no clue how. If some do exist, they are shoddy missives and are likened to needles in a haystack in comparison to their voluminous sermons on one person in the Godhead, namely Christ.

Because they don't know the whole counsel of God and utilize theological catch phrases like "Christ's righteousness alone" to downplay many essentials of the Christian faith, purveyors of this worldview are useless pawns for the cultists. As a result, church members serving under Functional Unitarian ministers have zero ability to defend the faith against cultists. Even worse, they may find themselves in fellowship with cultists in their assemblies, especially if one agrees with a Functional Unitarian pastor who says, "All one has to affirm is Christ's righteousness alone, and nothing else matters." It is thus no surprise that so many Annihilationists, Preterists, and deniers of the Trinity love to connect with many sovereign grace assemblies. They know a useless pawn when they see one!

Mikal Smith, a Sovereign Grace Pastor, would agree with the Functional Unitarian catch phrase "Christ's righteousness alone," as noted in an article on sermonaudio.com ("The Lord Alone Our Righteousness"). Yet, in a message ("Unity of God in Christ"), also located at sermonaudio.com, he denied the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, and thus does not believe that The One True God exists in a Trinity of distinct persons. Rather than dealing with everything he teaches, this article will address a few of Mikal's arguments and demonstrate how he is, admittedly or not, a Sabellian heretic, and not a herald of Scripture.

Closet Sabellian

Located in Joplin, Missouri, Sovereign Grace Baptist Church is led by Mikal Smith. To be clear, in one instance, Mikal claimed, "I'm not denying the Trinity." Yet, in this same sermon, he acknowledged that many do not agree with his take on the Trinity, and claims many have "misrepresented" him as a "Sabellian" or a "denier of the Trinity." However, if the shoe fits, what can he do?

Like every Sabellian, Mikal incessantly claims to affirm monotheism, but does not believe the One True God exists in three distinct persons. Nonetheless, in his own words, for example, Mikal said, "I don't find the Bible saying that there are three persons in the Godhead," and "I hear that all the time in theology books. It says there are three in persons, but one in essence. I don't find that anywhere in Scripture."

Concerning the teaching on the Trinity as three distinct persons indissolubly united in one being, Mikal claimed, "that is completely antithetical to what we've seen in the Scriptures." And in his endeavor to dispel a Trinitarian understanding of specific texts showing the Son and the Spirit as distinct persons, Mikal contended, "we've just read several verses that show that they are." Like it or not, Mr. Smith, your views underscore Sabellianism 101.

Personhood

Up to this point, it is patently clear that Mikal takes issue with the doctrine of One God existing in three distinct persons. For Mikal, this is unfathomable. Yet, he cannot provide a coherent definition of a person or hypostasis. Concerning the Trinity, while a person is one addressed by others in the vocative or described in the second or third person, a person is a self-conscious, logical, moral, and rational individual who says, "I," and is distinguished by personal properties. Put another way, "When we assert, according to the doctrine of the Trinity, that there are three persons in the Godhead, we mean that in the one spiritual nature of God there are three subjects, three who say "I," distinct from one another in personal properties, but subsisting in the same divine essence and eternally remaining the same in their distinct subsistence" (Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, p. 207).

To prove the definition of a person above, for example, consider the following arguments. When the Holy Ghost said, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them" in Acts 13:2 (bold emphasis added), He spoke in the first person twice, highlighting the personhood of the Holy Spirit. As a person in the Godhead, the Holy Ghost commands (Acts 10:19-20), teaches (John 14:26; 16:8, 13-14; Luke 12:12; Acts 8:29; 10:19; 1 Cor. 12:3), indwells (John 14:16-17; Rom. 8:9, 11; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19), testifies (John 15:26; Heb. 10:15), and intercedes for the elect (Rom. 8:26-27). Only a self-conscious, rational, moral, and logical person could accomplish these tasks.

No doubt, due to his a priori commitment to Sabellianism, Mikal would disagree with the claims above because he thinks the Son and the Holy Ghost refer to the same person. However, John 14:16 refutes his wishful thinking. After Christ spoke in the first person ("I"), He referred to the Father in the third person when He stated, "...and he shall give you another Comforter" (emphasis mine). And He spoke about the Holy Ghost in the third person in the last clause: "...that he may abide with you for ever" (emphasis mine). Concerning the deity, the Spirit said things only God could say (Acts 28:25-27; Heb. 3:7-11; 10:15-17), and the apostle maintained that lying to the Holy Ghost is tantamount to lying to God (Acts 5:3-4). Thus, the Bible describes all three persons as God (1 Cor. 8:6; Rom. 9:5; Acts 5:3-4) because the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost share the same divine being.

In defense of the Trinity of distinct persons in the Godhead, it is clear, per Jesus's repeated use of the vocative (case of address), that His addressing the Father proves the Father and the Son are distinct, and not the same person (Matt. 11:25; Luke 10:21; John 17:1, 5). Also Matt. 3:16-17 highlights the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as distinct persons. For example, in these texts, the Holy Ghost descended like a dove. Christ "was baptized." And God the Father lauded the Son. Not surprisingly, Mikal ignores the context and thinks the reading of John 3:13 proves that the Father speaking in Matt. 3:17 is actually the Son in Heaven talking about Himself during His earthly pilgrimage.

Hey, listen, if Christ can be on earth speaking to people and at the same time He says that the Son of Man is also in heaven, how is the son of man standing on earth and the son of man also in heaven? That's a mystery to me. I don't know, but it says the son of man is in heaven while he was talking on earth. That's a mystery. I don't go any further than what the Bible says. I don't want to speak anything less than the Bible says. All I know is somehow Christ as the son of man can be both in heaven and on earth at the same time. So why could he not as God, deity, be speaking out of heaven to God in flesh on earth. This is my beloved son. Well, who's he speaking of? He's speaking of the humanity, the manhood that has taken on the invisible God, or excuse me, the invisible God that has taken on flesh as the Christ, as the mediator, as the one God is mediating his own people in that flesh. I don't know how else to explain it. I may not even be able to explain it very well (bold emphasis mine).

In response, John 3:13 highlights Christ's omnipotence, but makes no mention of Christ speaking from Heaven—in the mode of the Father—about Himself on earth as the Son. Thus, ignoring Christ's repeated use of the first person about the Father and the Spirit in the third person, and treating John 3:13 as a proof text to justify his modalistic interpretation of Matt. 3:17 does not prove Mikal's point; all it proves is that he has an a priori allegiance to Sabellianism, not Scripture alone. Let's now take a look at a few more texts that Mikal twists, starting with the OT.

Deuteronomy 6:4

Moreover, in his bumbling missive, Mikal affirmed monotheism, yet repeatedly denied the One true God existing in a Trinity of distinct persons. He did cite Deut. 6:4, but failed to see how this verse refutes his Sabellian interpretation of the text. This verse reads, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one [אחד] LORD,” bold emphasis added).

As shown above, Moses presented Monotheism, not Tritheism or Polytheism. And affirming One God, not three gods, is thoroughly stressed in Scripture (Deut. 32:39; Is. 43:10; 44:6; 45:5-6, 21-22; 46:9). Consequently, Moses worshipped the One True God, not three independent divine beings. Concerning Deut. 6:4, per Mikal's Sabellian scheme, he should expect the reading of "one" to stress solitary oneness, not compound unity (For more information on compound unity and solitary oneness, see Cooper, The Eternal God Revealing Himself, pp. 59-60, cf. Morey, The Trinity, pp. 87-89), because the god he professes is unipersonal. Regardless of whether Mikal likes it or not, Scripture does not apply solitary oneness, yachid (יָחִיד) to the LORD in Deut. 6:4, nor does the original Hebrew ever assign יָחִיד to God.

Because the one true God exists in a plurality of distinct persons, Moses's emphasis on "one" emphasizes compound unity, not solitary oneness. In doing so, he explained how a plurality of persons have unity as one, in the same way he described the unity of one flesh between Adam and Eve in Gen. 2:24: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one, echad [אחד] flesh" (bold emphasis added). Thus, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (three persons) have absolute unity of essence (One God).

Isaiah 9:6

In a slavish attempt to prove the Son is the Father, and not a distinct person, Mikal relied heavily on what he perceived to be definite articles in Is. 9:6. Even though articles do exist in Hebrew, serving as a prefix to certain words [for example, see הארץ; transl., "ha-'eretṣ" ("the earth") in Gen. 1:1], his repeated mention of the definite article "the" for "everlasting Father" was futile because stand-alone definite articles do not exist in the Hebrew text. To make matters worse for him, albeit there is one definite article in Is. 9:6 existing as a prefix to the "the government" [Heb. המּשׂרה; transl., "ha-śārâ"], Mikal's insistence on the inclusion of the definite article for "everlasting father" and "mighty God" displayed his woeful ignorance as none of the Messianic titles for Christ in the Hebrew reading of Is. 9:6 include the article.

In his rambling on Is. 9:6, Mikal could not even conjure an elementary explication of what "everlasting father" means. To start, even though the English reads "everlasting," this noun, not an adjective, in the original Hebrew, means Christ is the Father of Eternity. And just because Mikal assumes the reading of "the everlasting father" means Jesus is the Father, this noun has various meanings, depending on the context (See The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, p. 3), as it does not always refer to God the Father. For example, in the Old Testament (OT), Jubal is called the "father of all such as handle the harp and organ" (Gen. 4:21). Father, per the context, means founder. Also, in the New Testament (NT), Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David are referred to as "father" (Matt. 3:9; Rom. 9:10; John 4:12; Mark 11:10). It would be absurd to refer to any of these creaturely forefathers as "God the Father" simply because the Bible refers to them as "father." Similarly, even though Is. 9:6 reads "everlasting father," Jesus is not the Father. Thus, "everlasting father" or Father of Eternity stresses the timeless existence of the eternal Son because He transcends eternity.

John 1:1

Furthermore, Mikal's ongoing appeal to verses he knows nothing about is not limited to the OT. He cited John 1:1, thinking it somehow supports belief in a unipersonal god. Yet, John 1:1, like every text in the Bible regarding the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, accentuates the doctrine of the Trinity. In the Greek New Testament (GNT), the original reads, "Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν [πρὸς] τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος" ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," bold emphasis added).

John's use of the stative verb ēn [ἦν] linguistically denotes the self-existence of the Son. So, in the first clause, John accentuated the preexistence and eternality of the Son. Interestingly, in the second, while many prepositions exist in the GNT (uper, anti, apo, dia, ek, epi, kata, etc.), John utilized pros ton Theon [πρὸς τὸν θεόν]. This prepositional construction occurs twenty times in the NT. Except for the times where the neuter plural article precedes πρὸς τὸν θεόν, it is clear that the predominant use of this prepositional phrase highlights a personal encounter and "differentiates between a person or persons and God" (see A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology, p. 118).

Also in John 1:1b, the nominative λόγος ("Word") is the subject, and the accusative θεόν ("God") is the object of πρὸς, thus proving that Christ is distinct from the Father and was with Him before the world's creation. And in the last clause of John 1:1 (καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος), John's use of θεὸς is qualitative, which stresses the nature of the λόγος (see Wallace, GGBB, p. 269). To summarize, John 1:1 highlights the eternality of the Son, the intercommunication between the Father and the Son as distinct persons, and the full deity of Christ. It is, therefore, grammatically, linguistically, and theologically impossible to treat John 1:1 as evidence for a unipersonal god, unless one is a Bible twisting heretic like Mikal, of course.

Colossians 2:9

Apparently, per Mikal's Sabellian sermon, if Godhead refers to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, then all three refer to Christ because Col. 2:9 reads, "For in him [Christ] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ κατοικεῖ πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς θεότητος σωματικῶς, bold emphasis added). Thus, it seems, per his sermon, that Mikal thinks the reading of this verse proves the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are ultimately the same person. Yet, any Christians worth their salt know that the Godhead refers to the One Divine Being, subsisting in three hypostases or persons. Mikal ignores the latter part, of course.

Paul's prison epistle (Colossians) does not support Mikal's wishful thinking. In the context of Colossians, specifically chapter one, the apostle demonstrated that the Father and the Son are distinct and not the same person. In the GNT, the "Father" and the "Son" are articular (vv. 12-13), not anarthrous. As a result, it is exegetically clear that Paul had the Trinity of persons in mind when he wrote Colossians.

Chapter two of Colossians presents a Christological treatise, notably in verse nine. Per the GNT, the root katoikeō [κατοικεῖ] is linguistically significant, as it is a timeless or gnomic present, describing what continuously dwells or permanently exists ἐν αὐτῷ ("in Him"). Concerning "Godhead," all the predominant lexical sources, for example, emphasize θεότητος as "the quality or characteristic(s) pert. to deity, divinity, divine nature, divineness" (BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 4th ed., p 395). And since sōmatikōs stresses the incarnation, Paul's focus was on defending the full deity of the person of the Son who became incarnate. So Mikal's disheveled take on Col. 2:9 is absurd.

Closing

In closing, while Mikal Smith dubbed his sermon, "Unity of God in Christ," Trinitarians will know it as "Mikal's modalism" or "Smith's Sabellianism." Bottom line: No matter how hard he tries, Mikal cannot account for both the singular and plural in both the OT and NT. For example, in the OT, Scripture describes the LORD as the One True God (Deut. 32:39; Is. 43:10; 44:6; 45:5-6, 21-22; 46:9), and applies the repeated use of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and prepositions in the plural to God (Gen. 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Job 35:10; Prov. 30:3; Ecc. 12:1; Is. 54:5; Dan. 7:18). Only Trinitarians can account for both the singular and the plural because they affirm One God existing in three distinct, co-equal, co-eternal, and co-glorious persons.

However, per his sermon, Mikal thinks affirming One God in three persons is tantamount to affirming three gods. By making this claim, Mikal exposed his ignorance of the Trinity. To put it simply, God's Word refers to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost as distinct persons, and describes all three as "God." Yet just because Scripture refers to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as "God" (1 Cor. 8:6; 1 John 5:20; Acts 5:3-4), one should not take this to mean God's Word promotes polytheism. On the contrary, each person is in every way God because they share the same divine essence (One God). Therefore, Mikal's "three gods" allegation is laughable because it is a typical gimmick that Muslims also espouse, as they hate the biblical Trinity just as much as he does.