“the only true God.” This is similar to John 5:44 and is one of the many places that gives 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” (cp. 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).
