Is God the Father the Only Almighty?
Revised January 18, 2023
“The Father is Almighty, the Son is Almighty, and the Holy Spirit Almighty. And yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. And yet there are not three Gods, but one God”—The Athanasian Creed
Trinitarians assert, in probably their main creed, above, that ‘God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,’ all rolled into one Almighty God, but three entities at the same time. Of course, this makes no sense, but let’s see what the Bible says:
“We know that, ‘An idol is nothing at all in the world’ and that ‘There is no God but one’. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’), yet for us there is one God, the Father . . . and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ“—-1 Corinthians 8:4-6 NIV.
One thing we can infer from this is that worship of anything other than God the Father is idolatry. This is confirmed by what Jesus himself said:
“The true worshippers will worship the Father in sprit and truth; that is the kind of worshipper the Father seeks. God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth“—John 4:23,24 NJB
Jesus here makes no allowance for worshipping the Son, or the Holy Spirit, or the Trinity!
Making clear that only the Father is Almighty God and is the Father alone is this:
“I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty”—2 Corinthians 6:18 NIV
Jesus and the holy spirit are never called “Almighty”.
The following 18 verses are some of the scriptures in the NT supporting the fact that God is the Father, and he alone is Almighty God:
John 6:27—“Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him the Father, God, has set his seal” (NAB). Since “the Father” is named as “God,” and has “set his seal on” “the Son of Man,” Jesus, this means that Jesus cannot be God.
1 Corinthians 15:24–“Then comes the end, when he [Jesus] hands over the kingdom to his God and and Father” (NAB)
Galatians 1:1–“By Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead” (NIV)
Ephesians 5:20–“Giving thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father” (NAB)
Ephesians 6:23–“Peace to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (NIV)
Philippians 2:11–“And every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (NIV)
Colossians 1:3–“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (NIV). God is said to be “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” which means that Jesus cannot be God.
Colossians 3:17–“Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (NIV)
1 Thessalonians 1:1-3 –“To the church in Thessalonica which is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ . . . We always thank God for you all. . . We remember before our God and Father . . . the hope which you have from our Lord Jesus Christ ” (NJB)
1 Timothy 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:2–“Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord”
Titus 1:4–“Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior” (NIV).
1 Peter 1:2–“Who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood” (NIV)
2 Peter 1:17–“He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with whom I am well pleased” (NIV)
2 John 3–“Grace, mercy and peace to you from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son” (NIV)
Jude 1–“To those who are called, who are dear to God the Father and kept safe for Jesus Christ” (NJB)
Revelation 21:22 – “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (NIV). This scripture makes clear that the Lamb, Jesus Christ, is not the Lord God Almighty.
As Jesus said, “the true worshippers will worship the Father [not the Son, or the holy Spirit, or the Trinity] in spirit and truth” (John 4:23 NJB).
16 thoughts on “Is God the Father the Only Almighty?”
Ross, I believe according to the Bible that there is only one chief god, known as “God,” and that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are subordinate to him.
Right, there is one one Almighty God (Revelation 4:8-11; 15:3,4). He clearly states that his name is “Yahweh”, which is used 6,800 times in the Old Testament. Jesus said “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). The holy spirit is referred as “it” (Romans 8:16), showing that it is not a person, although sometimes the Holy Spirit is personified as are other things such as “sin”, “death”, “water” and “blood” (Romans 5:14; 7:20; 1 John 5:7,8)
Do you allow that Jesus had the Father in the reality of his Word dwelling or tenting within him? Do you further accept that this same Jesus foreknown of God before the foundation of the world is truly His ‘only begotten (born) Son? Do you also allow that the recognition of Jesus’ claims involves ‘honouring the Son as we honour the Father’. Now it is uncontroversial that Jesus was ‘a man anointed by God with holy spirit’ during the days of his ministry, and following his victory he now enjoys the holy spirit as a ‘priest forever’ because he is ‘the same yesterday, today and forever’; thus Christ is truly ‘the beginning of the (new) creation of God’ and as Moses was God to Pharaoh, who represents the world of sin and bondage, so Christ is truly our God for there can be no holy spirit without the true appreciation of Christ, as Hendrikus Berkhof wrote in his book Christ is the meaning of History, and although I loathe creeds which bind the conscience, Christianity is right to say Glory be to God the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be forever. Peace
Everything written in the Bible is true (2 Timothy 3:16,17; John 17:7). “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11,12 NIV). The main glory goes to “God the Father”. “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19 NIV). “Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:17 NIV). While these scriptures are true, God is not literally inside Christ, anymore than Christ is literally inside us.
Interesting choice of quote, it’s one reason I favour the LSV as a study bible.
For let this mind be in you that [is] also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought [it] not something to be seized to be equal to God, but emptied Himself, having taken the form of a servant, having been made in the likeness of men, and having been found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself, having become obedient to death—even death of a cross, for this reason, also, God highly exalted Him, and gave to Him a Name that [is] above every name, that in the Name of Jesus every knee may bow—of heavenlies, and earthlies, and what are under the earth— and every tongue may confess that Jesus Christ [is] LORD, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11
In the name of Jesus can be read as restrictive to the People of God whereas at the same of Jesus favours or those views where everybody is brought to heel and in Augustine’s vison compelled to enter in.
The rest of your comment suggests you haven’t read me properly as I’m not suggesting God dwelt in some material sense in Christ, and neither is any Trinitarian that I know of. Jesus does however claim that the Father’s word dwells in him and does the works, and because of this he claims Sonship, which sonship he defines as doing the works of the Father – thus he insists they are the devil’s whelps as they do the devil’s works.
The question that the NT writings force upon us is given that we are compelled to accept its truth by its own testimony what then do we make of the Christ is he not in his resurrection the eternal Son of God, and what then does it mean to have the same life in oneself as the Father as in his self because the claim that disturbs any simple resting in the Unitarian view is Jesus’ claim is ‘as the Father has life in himself’ so he’s been given that life, but the Father’s life in himself is surely his very self existence an absolute property of real deity, and as such incommunicable, believers are said to have life in Christ and this is explained through the image of the vine which supplies the required sustenance and so life continues. Not so Jesus, and that, alongside of the fact that the occurrence of the Christ was at a time when the Roman world and its satellites were saturated with Greek thought, compels some form of trinitarian shape even if only the indeterminate claim of Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen
Jesus’ having “life in himself” is not intrinsic in Jesus, but in “the Father”. Proof is in John 5:26, “For as the Father has life in himself, so HE HAS GRANTED THE SON ALSO TO HAVE LIFE IN HIMSELF” (NIV). The fact that “the Roman world and its satellites were saturated with Greek thought, does not “compel” God’s people to have the same worldly Trinitarian thinking. Jesus plainly stated that “the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Mark 12:29 NIV), not three, and he agreed with the scribe that “God is one [not three] and there is no other but him” (Mark 12:32,33 NIV). The scriptures eliminate any possibility that God is a Trinity of any sort. “For us there is BUT ONE GOD, THE FATHER” (1 Corinthians 8:6 NIV).
Friend your reading into my words and making no effort at comprehension. Beware of that self righteous absolutism which sadly too often accompanies the religious mind. You’re sounding obsessed with your God is One mantra – which even the devils know and tremble at the knowledge, for Grace and Truth come by Jesus Christ.
God the Father cannot be known by you or me or any, accept through his Son Jesus Christ. This must be a primary Christian conviction without which the NT writings are simply historical documents. You insist the Bible is inspired, but on what grounds? Peter having risen up said to them, “Men, brothers, you know that from former days God made choice among us, through my mouth, for the nations to hear the word of the good news, and to believe; and the heart-knowing God bore them testimony, having given to them the Holy Spirit, even as also to us, and also put no difference between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith; now, therefore, why do you tempt God, to put a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we believe to be saved, even as also they.” Acts 15:7-11
It is the gift of the holy spirit by which we’re convinced of the veracity of scripture else it has no more authority that the Qur’an, the Bhagavad Gita, the Granth Sahib, or the Dhammapada, and all these texts to have their adherents, who kill and die for their conviction that their text is the true revelation of the One God, and how does the Christian verity differ? The Biblical difference should be that no Christian kills for their God rather they die for God knowing that having been sealed by the holy spirit and in Christ Jesus they are the children of God and death has no dominion. This is the distinguishing difference between Christian Faith and Religious attachment – the Christian gives a defence of the HOPE which is in them. if necessary to the death, the One God religious mindset ultimately mistakes their religious attachment for God and will all to happily kill for their idols. In the same manner Trinitarians having made an idol of their man made doctrine have assuredly killed for theirs.
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ [resulting] in continuous life; 22 and, indeed, show mercy to those who are doubting, 23 and rescue others by snatching [them] out of fire; but show mercy to others in fear, hating even the coat having been stained from the flesh. 24 And to Him who is able to guard you without stumbling, and to set [you] in the presence of His glory unblemished, in gladness, 25 to the only wise God our Saviour, [is] glory and greatness, power and authority, both now and forever! Amen. Jude 1:20-25 Or Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the Beginning, is now, and ever shall be.
I think that you are misunderstanding me. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34,35 NIV). “All who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52 NIV), so there is no allowance for Christians to participate in carnal warfare (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). While it is true that “no one comes to the Father except through” Jesus (John 14:6 NIV), Jesus made it clear that he is not equal to the Father. “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28 NIV). “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 5:20 NIV). We can can only know Almighty God, “the one who is true”, through “his Son, Jesus Christ”.
Friend we are writing at cross purposes I think, you have discovered the grand truth that God is One and one should worship the One God alone. No doubt you would cite Jesus’ word in Mark where he affirms it to be the greatest commandment of all.
Do I deny this? Have I in any manner indicated that the prophet Jesus is the equal of the Father ? No! I said that the prophet Jesus made certain declarations which, no doubt, his audience wilfully misunderstood. (It is a guiding principle (and here the KJV towers above modern testaments of infidelity) that ‘Eve being in the transgression was deceived’; oh the sweet profundity of this is what the carnal mind spends thousands with a good psychiatrist to discover, the reality every mind when carnal will ‘suppress the truth in unrighteousness’ ) How though do you interpret this? ‘Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. John 5:18
A casual reading might suggest that John is simply reporting the audience reaction, then it would appear upon further perusal that John is using the incident to make a claim about Jesus, and then further research would demand the question of why do translators always opt for equal as opposed to like? Even the complete Jewish Bible has ‘he was claiming equality with God’. Now the Greek isos is often rendered as like which would of course make more sense as Philippians’ insists that Jesus did not grasp at an equality with God while implying that such WAS there to be grasped (again isos).
Still Jesus being the second Adam is a core element in Paul’s thought, of how his death and resurrection overturn that judgement of death entering in the world, and this being understood it is inconceivable that Paul or any Apostle would be claiming for Adam any ‘equality’ with God but he certainly had a likeness to God as Genesis makes clear, a likeness he lost through trying to seize it unlawfully. However, Jesus being ‘obedient unto death, even death on a Cross’ not only has that likeness but has it eternally. Hence he has been given a name above every name, but what is that name? Is it not for the English speaking world Jesus. As you claimed previously ‘at the name of Jesus every knee should bow’.
Certainly Scripture argues for such equality being possible. As Pharaoh said to Joseph ‘only in the throne will I be greater than thou’. For the Egyptians Joseph was their Lord. Indeed did Pharaoh ever get involved knowing he had an absolutely faithful Steward in Joseph? Likewise; for the Christian Jesus is Lord, having all authority. For the Christian that eternal life which was with the Father, that Word of Life which hands had handled is their God. ‘ For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’. This being so, and the spirit bears witness that it is, how can we not confess. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be forever. Amen
Then He says to Thomas, “Bring your finger here, and see My hands, and bring your hand, and put [it] into My side, and do not become unbelieving, but believing.” And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus says to him, “Because you have seen Me, Thomas, you have believed; blessed [are] those having not seen, and having believed.” Many indeed, therefore, other signs Jesus also did before His disciples that are not written in this scroll; and these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His Name. John 20:27-31
The Trinity errs because it goes beyond what is written, it does so for the understandable reason that Scripture claims that Jesus is born through God’s direct spiritual agency unlike the first Adam who was animated Clay, the breath given to him being no different in scripture from that which animates the ‘beast of the field’. Adam’s image of God must therefore be understood as either moral likeness or image in the sense of being a representation of a Sovereign’s rule of any given territory. Jesus is contrast having become an eternal son of God is a life giving spirit, how can one understand this without beginning to trace an outline of the Trinity?
Jesus denied that he is God. “‘Why do you call me good?’ Jesus answered. ‘No one is good—except God alone'” (Luke 18:19 NIV). Jesus admitted that he is equal to God. “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). “The holy Spirit” (Luke 12:12 is “the Spirit of your Father” (Matthew 10:20), not a person. Greetings are given in the letters from “God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:2), and it is stated that “our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3 NIV), never ‘with the Holy Spirit’, as though it was a person. Thus the scriptures themselves, not only do not even hint at any Trinity, they flatly debunk every aspect of the Trinity doctrine.
As I said speaking we’re speaking past each other.
My purpose was simply to show that scripture asserts the truth that there is One God the Father, and also asserts that Jesus is a new category. Yes indeed he was in ‘every way made like unto his brethren’, and yet ‘…He commands even the winds and the waves, and they obey him!” Luke 8:25. Yes he asserted that only God is good, but scripture insists that Jesus is perfectly upright because ‘it was not possible that death could hold him’. The question is what to make of this Man? I assert that God always intended to produce a family thus Adam is a ‘son of God’ and Eve the mother of all living was produced from Adam’s symbolic death – ‘a deep sleep’, as was the covenant made with Abraham, Jesus was perfectly obedient and has been raised to an equality with God being given all authority, although not as king, for the desire for such is always the actual rejection of God but as a Priest forever as eternal man with all the fulness of God which truth and fulness can only be known spiritually in the ‘communion of the holy spirit’. One doesn’t worship Love one practices it as one experiences it shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. It is this Trinitarian shape to the economy of salvation that is indisputable from the witness of the NT.
The orthodox might have erred in turning philosophical ontological statements into Dogma but such is the reality of all institutions, our modern Universities exclude free speech unless it’s the right free speech, just as England’s once excluded any who weren’t Church of England. Control of thought is essential to the maintenance of any hierarchy and oligarchy. Why do you think so much effort is spent convincing Americans they have a Democracy or the massive tax supported Arms industry is an example of ‘free trade’.
This is beginning to remind me of that Joke which once done the rounds. A Canadian radio operative informing an American naval Captain that he would need to adjust his position to avoid a collision, to which he replied that his vessel was the second largest Aircraft Carrier in the American Fleet and received the reply ‘well this is a lighthouse’. God being One is fact, but knowing God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ through the renewal of his spirit is Salvation. If you weren’t citing the NIV I would of course cite 1John 5:7 but its supposed lack of support (and the reality that it gives more evidence of a Oneness view than Chalcedon) has it removed from our modern bibles which are of course in flux until our scholars have determined what precisely God wasn’t able to preserve without their help.
For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. Romans 5:10
I agree with much of what you say, but not all. Scripture never says that ‘Jesus was raised to an equality with God’. Just the opposite, in fact. Notice: “The head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3). “Then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him” (1 Corinthians 15:28 NIV). “The Son is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). “The kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah” (Revelation 12:10 NIV). The spurious words added to 1 John 5:7,8 are not in any Greek manuscript prior to the 14th century, but were added in violation of the warnings at Deuteronomy 4:2; Proverbs 30:5,6; Revelation 22:18,19. The NIV and others thankfully restore the NT text to its original form by eliminating such spurious additions.
Equality in terns of authority – ‘all authority has been given’ not in terms of ontology thus ‘only in the throne will I be greater than thee’.
I am not KJV only but modern versions most certainly do not ‘restore’ anything, such a claim only makes sense if you accept their faulty presuppositions, and then, as has been noted we don’t have a faithful word but the continuing industry of bible revision much to the delight Christ’s enemies. I am happy though with the textual tradition of the Vulgate and LXX and TR/Majority used comparatively to discover the best reading as scribal error is an easy thing to appreciate. So Nicholas King’s translation of Proverbs 10:26. ‘As an unripe grape is harmful to the teeth, and smoke to the eyes, so is transgression to those who have intercourse with her’ actually makes some sense; whereas the NIV and most others following the masorotic have, ‘As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes,
so are sluggards to those who send them’. which doesn’t.
The ‘spurious words’ as I said were if anything DELETED because in reality they would more support the Oneness view, certainly the underlying Greek insists that something should be there, and Ronald Knox includes it in his translation offering valid reasons. Reason dictates that is we accept John 1:1, 1John 1:2, then there are valid grounds for rejecting 1John 5:7 as it only speaks to the idea of several witnesses agreeing, as Jesus does in John where he claims his works equal the Father’s witness to his authority as ultimately the Resurrection does to his being indeed both ‘Lord and Christ’ and ‘the Son of God.
Jesus never claims any sort of equality with his Father, not even his works. Jesus was falsely accused of “making himself equal with God”. Why? Because “he was even calling God his own Father”. Yes, he called God his Father, because it’s true. Jesus’ fanatical opponents twisted his words and works to fit their own evil accusations. “Because Jesus was doing these things [healing] on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him”, by falsely accusing him of “breaking the Sabbath” (John 5:16-18 NIV). The witnesses in agreement in 1 John 5:7,8 are “the Spirit, the water and the blood”, all three are personifications, and none of which are persons. The lack of personhood of the holy spirit devastates the Trinity doctrine, as does the fact that Jesus denied any equality with his Father. “The Son can do nothing by himself, but only what he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19 NIV), whereas his Father says he “spreads out the earth by myself” (Isaiah 44:24 NIV).
If you have all authority ‘in heaven and on earth’ then functionally you are equal to the God who has the same authority. This is not to read into the text – it is the text. This authority, the Gospels continually show Jesus had during his ministry.
Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Acts 2:22-23 Thus it appears to me that Jesus ‘being in the form of God’ is precisely having this authority during the days of his ministry, having been Anointed of God & co has the same authority which Adam was given.
It is uncertain from John’s report whether the claim of being equal is his proffered opinion or an actual report of Jesus’ enemies accusation. What is clear is John feels no need to clarify that such a claim is false, which at the least should trouble those who would be too restrictive on what precisely the Gospels are claiming about Christ.
Again surely experience has taught that there is no salvific knowledge of God without first hearing the ‘voice’ of Jesus. The voice that summons First Adam is the voice of Judgement and Death. It is God as Law, but the Voice which summons Saved Sinners is the voice of the Spirit of Life it is ‘Awake O sleeper and rise from the Dead and Christ shall give you light’. For surely only those ordained to eternal life are properly seen as sleeping, having, from before the foundation of the world, that eternal life which was with the Father, but all others ‘the Lord knows not’. Praise ye the Lord.
Again your refusal of ‘personhood’ to the Holy Spirit is far too reductionist, yes it is neuter in the Greek, as is Logos, but would you deny your own spirit is your personality and that insofar as someone knows You they can know only as your words and actions reveal You. Thus it was expedient that Christ go so those assembled through his Call might know the fulness of God in the communion of the Holy Spirit which is intensely personal if so be the Lord graciously visits his people. Without such Communion John assures us our opinions are mere idols for we are not walking in love towards one another for this love is known only by the holy Spirit, again an ontological trinity as a dogmatic test of fellowship, is to my mind unbiblical, but that salvation has in the NT a three fold contour is plain, and so any might offer thea praise. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be forever’.
There is no mention of any so-called “ontological Trinity” in the Bible. While God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, both have glory and are both given given glory in the Bible, the Holy Spirit never is, which is just another clue that the Holy Spirit is not a person. Jesus had to be given “all authority” because he did not have it intrinsically (Matthew 28:18). However, even this “all authority” is limited because “when it says that ‘everything’ has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include Jesus himself who put everything under Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:27 NIV). It is only “God”, “the Almighty”, who has absolute unlimited “power” (Job 36:22; 37:23 NIV), not Jesus. Jesus freely admitted while he was on earth that his Father’s authority exceeded his (Matthew 20:20:23). The allegation that Jesus was “making himself equal with God” simply because “he was calling God his own Father”, is just as false as the slander that Jesus was “breaking the Sabbath” (John 5:18 NIV). “Jesus . . . was a man accredited by God . . . by miracles, wonders and signs, which GOD DID . . . THROUGH HIM” (Acts 2:22 NIV). Thus, it is clear that Jesus was not the source of the miracles, God is. There is no equality!