Do You Accept Or Do you Believe?

I recently had a commenter note that I don't "accept" the Trinity. I was also told that Jordanville has told people that I am a heretic and to pay no attention to me. Are we to accept or are we to believe? Are we to accept doctrines from a board of directors or councils commanded and supervised by Roman Emperors over 300 years after Christ; or are we to believe because the truth has been given to us via the Scripture and the inspiration of the Spirit of God? If those boards, councils, and emperors follow the faith once given to us, then they are to be embraced; if they don't, then flee from them. But how will you know unless YOU are "diligent to present yourself approved before God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." After 17 years in the Orthodox Church, I know the difference between sole fide and sole scriptura and neither relegate the current or future state my soul to a body of human hierarchs. Have you abdicated the future of your soul and what you believe to such a group?  How's that working for you?

Suggestion: To be "approved by God" takes diligence. Take some time and study every Scripture reference below. If you do that and can still call me a heretic, then there may be other issues involved. Why does it bother some so much to call Jesus a man? The Scripture does.

For this, I am called a heretic:

Who is Jesus?

Borrowed from Spirit and Truth

He is the only man ever born by way of God putting a seed in the womb of a virgin (Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:35). God put a perfect seed in the womb of Mary so that Jesus would be born without the sin nature that every other human being inherited from the First Adam. Therefore, Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God (John 3:16) and the Son of Man (John 5:27).

He is the only man who is called “the Last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45). As the only-begotten Son of God, Jesus was the genetic equivalent to the first “Son of God,” Adam (Luke 3:38). As the only man born without inherent sin, Jesus was thus the only man equipped to be the Savior and Redeemer of mankind. Romans 5:12-21 is the classic comparison of these two Adams and the respective impact each had on mankind.

He is the only man who had perfect faith in God, and who, by his free will choices to trust God, lived a sinless life, always doing the will of his Father (John 8:29). Jesus was not a robot, programmed to obey God. If so, he could not have been genuinely tempted to sin, just like all men he came to save (Heb. 4:15). The absence of a sin nature was not the reason why Jesus did not sin. We know that because the First Adam also had no sin nature, and he sinned royally.

He is the only man who died as the perfect sacrifice for our sins (Heb. 10:12-14; 1 John 4:10). By his virgin birth and his lifelong obedience to God, all the way to his dying breath on the Cross, he became the perfect sacrifice for the sin and sins of mankind (Heb. 2:17). Thus, he was the complete propitiation for fallen men to be redeemed. [For further study read How can a man atone for the sins of mankind?]

He is the only man God ever raised from the dead unto everlasting life in order to confirm that he was who he had said he was—the Son of God (Acts 17:31; Rom. 1:4). The resurrection of Jesus Christ was God keeping His promise to His Son, and also His affirmation to all men that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). [For further study read Resurrection: The “New Birth” of Jesus Christ.]

He is the only man whom God highly exalted as “Lord” and “Head of the Church,” and to whom God has given all authority in heaven and on earth (Dan. 7:13-14; Phil. 2:9; Acts 2:36; Eph. 1:22; Matt. 28:18). As Pharaoh exalted Joseph to his right hand and gave him all authority in Egypt (Gen. 41:37-46), so God has given Jesus functional equality with Himself. Jesus Christ is now God’s “right hand man” (Eph. 1:20), carrying out the work that will eventually restore this fallen world.

He is the only man who is now the Mediator between God and mankind (1 Tim. 2:5). It is Jesus Christ to whom God has given the power to “save to the uttermost” all who call upon his name, because he ever lives to make intercession for us (Heb. 7:25).

He is the only man who will gather together all Christians to meet him “in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17) and give each one a new body like his own (Phil. 3:21). As the promised “seed” of the woman (Gen. 3:15), Jesus Christ will produce fruit after his kind, a race of people living forever.

He is the only man who will one day return to the earth, destroy all evil men (and eventually destroy Satan and his evil spirit cohorts), and rule the earth as King for 1000 years (Rev. 19:11-20:7). At his first coming to the earth to Israel, Jesus was the sacrificial Lamb of God, but he will come again as the Lion of Judah to save his people, Israel, and destroy all God’s enemies.

He is the only man who will raise from the dead every human being who has ever lived (John 5:21, 25). As God has given Jesus “life in himself,” so he will raise up all people.

He is the only man who will judge all men and women of all time (John 5:22, 27). Jesus will righteously judge all people, granting everlasting life to those who deserve it, and annihilating all the wicked (Acts 17:31; John 5:28, 29).

He is the only man who will restore on a new earth the Paradise that the First Adam lost (1 Cor. 15:24-28). As “the Last Adam,” Jesus was God’s Contingency Plan to salvage His original plan that Adam’s disobedience thwarted, that is, a perfect race of people living forever on a perfect earth. Amen. [For further study read Where Did the Idea Originate that Believers Would Live Forever in Heaven?]

He is the only man who is our Savior, our Redeemer, our Mediator, our Lord, our constant Companion, our Best Friend, our Big Brother, the Light of our lives, our Peace, our Joy, and our Mentor in the art of faith.

He is the Lover of our souls, and that is why we love him and confess him as Lord (Rom. 10:9).

***

Addendum:

“the only true God.” This is similar to John 5:44 and is one of the many places that give good evidence that Jesus Christ is not God. When Jesus prayed and called God “the only true God,” he was simply acknowledging a truth that was clearly stated in the Old Testament: For example, Nehemiah 9:6-7 says, “You are Yahweh, even you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their army, the earth and all things that are on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all. The army of heaven worships you. You are Yahweh, the God who chose Abram” (cf. Ps. 86:10; Isa. 37:16; 43:11; 45:5). Yahweh is the Father and “the God,” the “only true God” that Jesus recognized and prayed to.

The Trinity, the doctrine that “God” is both three and one at the same time is mysterious, incomprehensible, and unbiblical. It is never described in the Bible and attempts to come close to explaining it have to use language that is not in the Bible. For example, that Jesus is said to be both “100% human and 100% God” is both unbiblical and self-contradictory. Also, the Trinity doctrine says there are three “persons” in the one God, but then Trinitarians are quick to state that “persons” does not actually mean “persons” in the ordinary sense, but then they cannot exactly define “person” in the Trinitarian sense. That is because a “person” is an individual, but the “persons” in the Trinity are not individuals in the ordinary sense, but are part of “the one God,” so they are persons but not persons at the same time.

Trinitarians say that God is “one what and three whos,” but that is, as stated above, both incomprehensible and unbiblical. When we read the Bible, God always speaks of Himself as one being. He uses “I” and “me” and “my,” and never refers to Himself as an “essence” or “nature.” The same is true of Jesus. John 17:3 is clear, succinct, and understandable: God is “the only true God,” and He “sent” His Son, Jesus Christ, who is a human being (1 Tim. 2:5). 

From the REV Commentary