Please help me to respond to some of my non-trinitarian friends

Your friend believes that people who believe in the trinity are forced to do so? Does your friend alone receive revelation from Jesus or is this available to all Christians? Has your friend ever held a belief at one point and later had fuller or different revelation given?

Is God a man?

So the body of Christ was deity?

To be honest, I don't care what Constantine or the Council of Nicaea said. They spent years, if not centuries, trying to explain the essence of God and the Trinity. I believe what it says and it is clear in the Bible and that is all. There are plenty of verses that clearly emphasize that Jesus and God are one. And they have posted them all here. I'm going to put the latest thing I found and I hope it can help you. If not, you will have to continue praying for your friend so that God will open his eyes and understanding.

How is Jesus the Alpha and the Omega? (compellingtruth.org)

We have become partakers of the divine nature...2 Peter 1:4.

So the body of Christ was deity?

His physical body?

I don't think so, his body was completely human and mortal, he had the same physiological needs that we humans have. The only thing that differentiated him was that he was sinless and it had to be that way because he was the sacrificial lamb for the atonement of sins. After he was resurrected and during the transfiguration that is narrated in Matthew 17:1-8, it is the aspect of the glorified body or a deity as you say. Paul also speaks of the corruptible body and incorruptible or glorified body.

Are you doubting at all that God is Triune? If not, what convinced you? i would say the Gospel of John for me. If he is open to the New Testament, as he appears to be, show him its beginning and then the seven I AM statements of Jesus; they identify him with the I AM THAT I AM of Moses' burning bush (Exodus 3 and 4) as well as one of them with David's divine Shepherd (Psalm 23), for example. Run through them with him, and show him how Jesus claimed to be God. Then, show him in chapters 14, 15, and 16 how Jesus presents the Holy Spirit as a Person of God. Jesus also claims that he is one with the Father. The Trinity is a mystery which we cannot solve with our human minds.

If those passages don't convince him, it's not God's time for him yet. Just continue to be a good friend by witnessing to him about what he is doing in your life and occasionally inviting him to go to your church. And pray always for him.

What is the religious background of your friend? Is he perhaps a Muslim or apostolic oneness Pentecostal?

Try these.... eye glasses
They saw something alright. But it was not God, as God is.
It was God allowing them to see what represents Him to their limited way of thinking.

Are you thinking?
Tell me this .. How can anyone see omnipresence???

Omnipresence is not in front of you. Its everywhere.

How can you see that???

Impossible.

Hebrews 1:3

1God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 2Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; 3Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

This book distinguishes Jesus from the Father as distinct "persons" as we see here. It uses that third person possessive pronoun to say that Jesus is the express image of the Father's person. There's the Son's person and there's the Father's person. Throughout the Old and NT we see the distinct persons of the Father described, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Man's soul is created in God's image.

Since no one can see God (John 1:18) ? God must use a means to make Himself knowable to us.

God's genius utilizes the humanity of Christ to manifest all we can possibly know about God,
by manifesting God in a way we have the capacity to relate to and understand as humans.

That is why a Greek word that means "exegesis" is used in John 1:18.
Its to tell us that Jesus is God's means to exegete God for man's understanding.

The Amplified Bible even translated John 1:18 with that factor of exegesis in mind.

Here is a typical translation.
It is lacking in the depth needed to convey exegesis.

New International Version



And here is what the Amplified Bible provides to give us closer understanding to what is intended in the Greek.


That is why Jesus made it known to his disciples....


John 14:9


Since God when unfiltered and interpreted would be incomprehensible to man?
God has His Son (humanity and God in union) to exegete what he knows, and we can not understand.
Unless it is demonstrated and explained to us in a manner that we as humans are being able to grasp.

In other words? If Jesus is not God? He is all the God we can know! That is why He is the Word. For we use words to comprehend
reality. God simply knows all things. God does not really need to speak within the Trinity. The Trinity is always knowing all things without need for explanation.

So why did Jesus say that it was his father in heaven who revealed to Peter who Jesus really was?

"the father isn't the holy spirit" right? So, why is it the "holy spirit" that "wouldn't lead one to come to such an erroneous conclusion".

Trinitarians are the ones who reveal the trinity... with that stupid tetrahedron diagram- given to ME by MAN and not by God. Not from heaven; but from the philosophy of man. Requires no revelation from God at all; so easy a caveman can do it.

But you go ahead and think of me as an unbeliever; because I believe what the bible says in it's own words instead of your little diagram.

Jesus was both human and divine.

The trinity states that inside the fully man of Jesus is the second person of the Godhead, ALONE, the Word of God.

Is God a man?

Yes. His flesh.

The erroneous conclusion is not to mean they do not have the indwelling Holy Spirit.
It means they are failing to be filled with the Spirit.

For we are never commanded to be indwelt by the Spirit. That God does in regeneration.

But, we are commanded to be filled.

That command was given to believers. To those who already had the indwelling Spirit.

Being filled is when the Holy Spirit actively affects your mind, and is controlling your sin nature.
To be in that state, one must always be ready, if need be, to quickly implement 1 John 1:9.

Grace and peace ..........

Can you be God, to know God?