In this teaching from God Honest Truth Ministry, we offer a clear and uncompromising look into Biblical Unitarianism—the belief that the One True God is the Father alone. You will learn what Biblical Unitarianism is and what it is not, how early believers understood the nature of God, and the historical roots of the doctrine.
Join us as we seek truth, challenge assumptions, and strive to worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Join us as we learn the God Honest Truth about biblical Unitarianism!
#BiblicalUnitarianism #Unitarianism #OneGod #GodHonestTruth #TruthMatters #RestoringTheFaith
Transcript
What did the earliest believers in Yeshua believe about God and the nature of God, the Godhead as it were, and how did these beliefs develop over time? In this particular video, we’re going to continue our study of the Godhead and look at another concept of the Godhead referred to as Unitarianism. So make sure to stay tuned for this teaching and our continued study of the Godhead as we study the concept of Unitarianism. So this Josh is gonna be all about Unitarianism as another continuing episode in our Godhead series. This is gonna be the third of one of the concepts that we’re gonna be studying in our study of the Godhead.
Now if you like more information on this, you can go to our website at godhonesttruth.com. Click on the link for this particular teaching. There you’ll be able to find the on demand video that you see here on your screen. You’ll also be able to find the draw slides that we did for this study. You’d be able to find the notes that we took for this study and also the transcript if that so happens to be something that is of interest to you.
And it’s all conveniently located for you there at godhonesttruth.com. You can also go down below in the description and there you’ll be able to find a convenient link that will take you directly to that article post on our website. But before we get to that, let’s go ahead and look at the purpose of the series and why we’re doing this in the first place. Number one, so you can start from a place of knowing absolutely nothing about the stud the subject of the godhead, be able to learn what the scriptures have to say about the subject, and then at the end, come to a decision for yourself on which concept of the godhead that you most align with or most agree with. As we’ve always said, it doesn’t matter which concept you go with.
Your salvation is not dependent on your adherence to any one of the particular concepts of the godhead. And whichever one you pick is okay with us. We’re still brothers and sisters in Messiah. We’ll still fellowship and still break bread together. Now let’s go ahead and recap real quick what we’ve done previously to this and previous episodes in our study of the Godhead.
In episode one, we went over the introduction to the series and also the terminology that we’ll be using during the course of this series. And at the end of that episode, we actually went over very briefly what is salvation just to give you assurance that your salvation is not dependent on which concept of the Godhead that you go with. In episode two, we went over the word God and the word Elohim in Hebrew. What did all those mean? The difference between names and titles and everything related to that.
In episode three, we went over the Shema, what it is and how it relates to the subject that we are currently studying, which is the Godhead. In episode four, we went over the phrase sons of God and how that’s used in scripture. In episode five, we went over the meaning of names, which is very, very important in our study of the Godhead. Episode six, we went over the name of the father, son, and holy spirit as it comes from Matthew chapter twenty eight nineteen, how that’s used in scripture, what it actually means, and even how in scripture sometimes they’ll use the singular word name for multiple people. So go check that out.
That’s definitely a episode that you wanna check out if you’re gonna be studying this subject of the godhead. In episode seven, we went over the word worship, what that actually means, how it’s changed over time, and how the writers of scripture meant it when they used this word worship. In episode eight, we went over the word spirit and the concept of spirit in general as it applies to men, as it applies to supernatural beings like angels, and also as it applies to Yahweh himself. Episode nine went over the specific term spirit of the holy, and we got drilled down just that one right there, not in general anymore, but specifically spirit of the holy or holy ghost, holy spirit, set apart spirit, whichever way you like to term spirit of Yahweh. Then episode 10, we went over the concept of original sin, what it is, where it came from, how that relates or does not relate to our study of the godhead.
Episode 11, we went over distinctions between various candidates for the godhead as it is what the importance is of understanding distinctions between two different people or two different things. And we also went over various distinctions that separate both Yahweh, Yeshua, angels, and humans such as mortality, omniscience, sin, sleeping, forgiving of sins, etcetera, etcetera. Then in episode 12, we went over some things that did not really deserve a drash in and of themselves. Things like basic language comprehension, as well as the terms lord, son, father, begotten, etcetera, etcetera. Episode 13, we started looking at the four different concepts of the godhead, and we started out with the concept of Trinitarianism.
We went over what Trinitarianism is, more precisely and more clearly what it is after that. Then we went through some history about Trinitarianism and covered some things of how Trinitarianism developed and looked at that through the lens of the artwork that was put forth to try and portray the concept of the Trinity. In episode 14, which is our last episode in the series, we went over the concept of Benetarianism, what Benetarianism is, some history that pertains to Benetarianism as it goes through church history and our study here of the Godhead. And, also, we looked at various people even today who put forth the concept and believe in the concept of Benetarianism. So with all that recapped, everything we’ve done in the past as far as episodes go in this series, Let’s also look at and recap some things that are important to keep in mind as we go through and study these concepts of the Godhead.
Number one, what is the Godhead? Well, a study of the Godhead is really a study of who god is, who is god, and how many are god. In other words, the nature and essence of god himself. Also, keep in mind the concept in the term fear mongering. As we go through this, we will not be employing fear mongering.
But basically, fear mongering is the act or the attempt to scare you into doing a certain thing or thinking and believing a certain way. We see this a lot within politics, especially American politics nowadays, but it has been prevalent within church history as well. And if someone comes to you with their concept of the godhead and they try to manipulate you through fear mongering into believing their particular concept, odds are they don’t have the foundation and evidence to support and promote and justify their position. So don’t be fear mongering into it. And also remember that your salvation is not dependent on it.
So if you’re feeling pressured, just walk away and forget it. That’s fine. So don’t let someone fear mongering you into believing a certain way. Make up your own mind, stand on the truth, and stand on scripture. Also, keep in mind the term orthodoxy.
Now orthodoxy comes from the Greek orthodoxos, and it means correct think or correct opinion or correct choice, something like that. In the context of church history, orthodoxy really boils down to what was popular enough to get voted in at a certain point in history. That’s what orthodoxy is. In more specific terms, as it comes to each individual person, orthodoxy generally boils down to what they believe and what they agree with. That’s orthodoxy in that context.
So you got the literal definition, you got the context within general history, and you got the context within specific people. So keep that in mind, and if someone says that you’re not orthodox or try to claim that what they believe is orthodox, now you know what they mean, and you can kinda brush it off. The flip side of that coin of orthodoxy is the term heresy. Now orthodoxy means correct choice or correct opinion, heresy means incorrect or wrong choice or wrong opinion, wrong thing as it were. And once again, within the context of history and church history itself, ARC basically boils down to mean that which was not popular enough to get voted in.
And within specific people in that context, it generally means that which the person does not agree with or something that someone disagrees with. So if someone comes up to you and tells you that you are spouting or believing in heresy or that you’re heretical, now you know what they mean. You can just say, well, that’s nice and go on about your day. But as far as heresy and orthodoxy goes, keep in mind that your love for the truth should be what guides you and determines your doctrine. When Rufinus translated Origen’s works from the Greek into the Latin, it actually changed what Origen said in some places.
And the reason for doing this was, as g w Brotherwer said about him, that his fear of heresy is with him a stronger motive than the love of truth. And let that never be said about any of us. In fact, let it be the opposite that our love of truth was stronger than our fear of heresy. Heresy is just an opinion, but truth will always be truth. So stand for the truth.
Educate yourself, definitely. But don’t be bullied into this name calling that people get into sometimes, and they’re calling you heretics because you don’t agree with them. Don’t even buy into it. Stand for the truth. Have a love for the truth, and don’t worry about what people call you.
As you know, in the end, you’re right. The four main concepts of the godhead, we’ll go over them just real briefly one more time. Number one, we’ve got Trinitarianism. Number two, Benitarianism. Number three, Unitarianism, specifically biblical Unitarianism.
And number four is oneness or modalism. Now, of these, we’re gonna be doing number three tonight that is biblical Unitarianism. But as history goes, we really have a lot of information and a lot of history from the concept of Trinitarianism and Trinitarians in general because back in the fourth century, that was the concept that won out and got voted in. Due to that, the other three kinda got downplayed for a long time, but there’s still a lot of the other ones as well. Benetarianism is probably the one we had the least amount of information on because it was the minority all throughout history.
Unitarianism. We actually have a lot on Unitarianism. We’re going to be going over some of that today. So we got a lot of information to present to you, but all the same, we can’t present everything in a decent time frame. So go forth out of after this and do your own research.
Do your own study oneness or modalism as it used to be referred to also has a fair amount of history behind it and a fair amount of adherence even today. So we’ll get more into that when we do our next episode in our Godhead series. So now, moving on and looking at what is Unitarianism and once again, just a quick point of clarification right here. When we say Unitarianism, we mean the theological thought, the concept of the Godhead. That is what we’re referring to.
But unfortunately, Unitarianism that word has become muddied and there are a group of people nowadays called the Unitarian Universalist, which has nothing to do with Unitarianism as in reality. In fact, it really has nothing to do with Christianity at all, even though there is some loose association in some people’s minds. So just to make a distinction between that, a lot of times we will say that phrase biblical Unitarianism to make sure that people are understanding what we’re saying instead of confusing us with the Unitarian Universalist or the UUs, which is whole set of crazy, but not to get off on a tangent. We’re talking about biblical Unitarianism tonight. And just for shorthand, we’re gonna be using the word Unitarian or Unitarianism.
But know that when we say that, we mean biblical Unitarianism and that’s gonna be the context for this particular teaching. Now Unitarianism is defined according to wikipedia.org, quote, Unitarian Christians affirm the Unitarian nature of God as the singular and unique creator of the universe, believe that Jesus Christ was inspired by God in his moral teachings and that he is the savior of mankind, but he is not equal to God himself. Unitarians believe Jesus did not claim to be God and that his teachings did not suggest the existence of a triune God. Unitarian Christology can be divided according to whether or not Jesus is believed to have had a pre human existence. Both forms maintain that God is one being and one person and that Jesus is the son of God, but generally not God himself.
Now two things to point out here real quick as well to go along with this is number one, just like with Trinitarianism and Benitarianism, this is a general statement of what most the vast majority of Unitarians believe, but not every single one. Like with Trinitarianism and like with Benitarianism, there are nuances within the Unitarian community, and you really need to get to know each individual one to know what they specifically believe. So it’s not a cookie cutter type of theology just like Trinitarianism and Benitarianism. Number two, also keep in mind that episode that we did on the word God or gods and Elohim as it comes from the Hebrew. And when people use this word, God or gods, understand what that means in context and also as it relates to the context of scripture and our study of the godhead.
Next, what is Unitarianism? And this comes from biblehub.com. Quote, Unitarianism is a theological movement and belief system that affirms the oneness of god. Historically, Unitarians have emphasized reason, individual experience, and moral teachings as primary guides in understanding the divine. Its central feature typically remains an insistence that God is one, not three persons in one being, end quote.
And finally, from christianity.com, quote, Unitarianism is a Christian belief that God is a single entity and not three forms. Unitarianism is a theological movement named for its view that the God in Christianity is one person, that Jesus was encouraged by God in his moral teachings, and he is a savior, yet he was not a divinity or God incarnate. Many Unitarians consider their Christology most similarly matches that of the original Christians. End quote. Now just to be fair and another point of clarification, Unitarians do consider their Christology to be that of the original disciples and Yeshua himself, but on the same hand, so do Trinitarians, Benatarians, and oneness or modalism adherence.
So everyone thinks they have it right, in other words. But like with everything, we have to do our own due diligence, do our own study, and pray and search and research all this, come to our own decisions. Now let’s look at some history of Unitarianism as we go throughout the centuries. And number one, we looked back at the Nicene Creed when we looked at Trinitarianism and also Benitarianism. And here is the Nicene Creed just as a recap.
And this is the original Nicene Creed of 03/25, not the modified one that came out of Constantinople in March. Here is the original Nicene Creed of 03/2025. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God, begotten of the father, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the father, by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation came down and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered, and the third day, he rose again, ascended into heaven. From then, he shall come to judge the quick and the dead and in the Holy Ghost.
Now like we said earlier, this Nicene Creed was really the first official statement of the, let’s call it, unified church at that point. Because at this point, the emperor Constantine was coming in. He was trying to get everyone in the empire unified and he didn’t want division within Christianity and he had already made Christianity legal and stopped the persecution as it were. But just before this, there were debates within Christianity about the Godhead. And this is really the main reason why the Council of Nicaea was called together.
And it was disputes about the nature of Yeshua, the Messiah, and how he related to the Father. And so Constantine made them all get together and come to a consensus. And this was the first time that the world of Christianity came together, as it were, and voted on a consensus as to this particular subject of the Godhead. And what they came out with was more of a Benitarian statement than anything else. The Holy Ghost they’ve got here just was tacked on the end.
But before this, there was debate, and it was really up in the air as far as a consensus goes as to how Yeshua relates to Yahweh, how he relates to the father. But before this, there was still their own individual understandings in all the way back as far as Tertullian in January all the way up to 02/20. He’s writing some things that we can glean some insight from as far as the godhead goes, and we look at his work against Praxis in chapter nine, quote, the father is the entire substance, but the son is a derivation and portion of the whole as he himself acknowledges. My Father is greater than I. Thus, the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son, inasmuch as he who begets is one, and he who is begotten is another.
He too who sins is one, and he who is sent is another. And he, again, who makes is one, and he through whom the thing is made is another. End quote. Now as we look at this, we see some clues here. He says that the sun, Yeshua, is a portion of the whole.
Well, this right here takes it out of the realm of Trinitarianism and also Benitarianism as both of these concepts say that the son and the father are equal and they’re part of the one, but they’re not a division or a portion of God, but fully God. So we know that Tertullian was not a Trinitarian or a Benitarian. So even as early as back as the second century, we see Unitarianism being spouted and promoted by people like Tertullian. We also get a good distinction or a good, oh, how do you say this, clue as to him not being modalist or oneness either. We haven’t covered that yet.
We’ll be covering that in our next episode. But basically, just in a nutshell, modalism teaches that God exists or puts forth himself as three different modes. Sometimes as the mode of the father, as the mode of the son, or as the mode of the holy spirit. Trinitarianism teaches that God is three persons where modalism teaches these three modes where God will come in in one instance and put on the mask of the father and another instance he come in put on the mask of the son just depending on which point in history or which situation that we’re talking about. Here, you can tell that we already we’re able to determine that Tertullian was not a Trinitarian and then we that is not a Binitarian, but we can also see that he’s not a modalist either because he says that the father is distinct from the son and from that we can glean that he’s not a modalist.
So Tertullian, at at least according to this quote, we can see is a Unitarian and this is way before the Council of Nicaea. Then we go and look at another work of Tertullian, his Against Hermogenes in chapter three, quote, god is in like manner a father, and he is also a judge, but he has not always been father and judge. He could not have been the father previous to the son nor a judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin existed with him nor the son. Just as he became the father by the son and a judge by sin, so also did he become lord by means of those things which he had made, in order that they might serve him.
End quote. So here we can see that Dertullian is stating that there was a time when the son was not. So, Dertullian is saying that when the son did not exist, that Yahweh was not a father because he didn’t have a son. Obviously, it’s just common sense. And then he became a father by having a son.
Now, he doesn’t say, at least in this quote, exactly when the son came about, and that’s something of a dispute amongst Unitarians as to whether or not Yeshua preexisted his time here during the Apostolic Age or whether he came into existence at the Apostolic Age. We don’t really know. Or they haven’t really come to a consensus, and there’s disagreements there. But that’s fine. We can disagree on the gray areas within scripture.
And I know some of you out there are screaming at me saying, no. I believe this because it’s not a gray area. It’s obvious from the text. And, yeah, I get it. I get it.
Okay? But if it was obvious, there would be so much confusion, generally speaking. But, anyways, yeah, we can see here that this is another Unitarian quote from Tertullian. We know it’s not Trinitarian or Benitarian because both those things or both of those concepts state that the father and the son have eternally existed, always existed. And obviously, if the sun is just a mode of god, then he would have always existed.
So this would go in a stark contradiction to Trinitarianism, Benitarianism, or Modalism. So here we can see that Tertullian was, in fact, a Unitarian, a biblical Unitarian. And we go on and we look at the writings or the quotes from Arius. Now keep in mind that after Tertullian and all these other writers like Justin Martyr, etcetera, etcetera, and right before the Council of Nicaea, well, I’ve told you those disputes started coming about. And one of the main contenders in the dispute is a guy named Arius.
And he was contending with another guy named Alexander in down in, Alexandria. Sorry. So Arius was one of the proponents of the other opinion from the Nicene Creed. Alexander is the one who who had the opinion that eventually got voted in as the Nicene Creed and Arius was the one whose theology was not voted in. But anyways, since Arius lost that council vote of Nicaea, we can we got a little bit of trouble trying to know exactly what Arius believed because his writings and stuff, they were burned and destroyed.
And Arius himself was actually exiled right after the council of Nicaea. So the quotes that we get from Arius a lot of times are from his opponents at when they’re writing in the aftermath. As they say, it’s the victors who write the history books and so happened here in this instance. So the quotes we got from Arius come from his opponents, but we got a few here and we’re gonna look at what Arius actually said, which is what actually got the whole council of Nasia started. But here we look at a quote from Arius and he says, quote, if the father begat the son so that he was begotten sorry.
Let me go back and try it again. If the father begat the son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence. And from this, it is evident that there was a time when the son was not. It therefore necessarily follows that he had his substance from nothing. End quote.
And another quote, if God and Christ were equal, then Christ should be called God’s brother, not God’s son. End quote. So it’s obvious he’s not really going along with the Benetarian concept that got voted in at Nicaea, and he’s that therefore leads to a conclusion that he’s also not a Trinitarian, which came into development later on, especially about March at Constantinople. So Arius was not a Venetarian, Trinitarian, and we can also see from a study of Arius that he was not a oneness or modalist modalist either. Now Arius was a biblical Unitarian.
He believed in the oneness of God just like Tertullian did. But like I said, Arius is one of the main opponents or challengers or fighters in this whole controversy that sparked the council of Nasia and really got this whole discussion about the godhead going all throughout history. And if you would like to know more about that particular debate or conflict, a book that I would highly recommend is one by Richard Rubinstein titled, When Jesus Became God. Now this is a book that just puts forth the historical account. It’s actually written by a Jew, so he’s not trying to promote one concept or the other.
He’s just putting out the historical account as it is, and it’s very gripping. I started reading this and I did not want to put it down. It was just so engaging and so thrilling to read and it’s true. It’s true stuff. It’s historical, which made it even that much more stranger that I was so into it.
But the politics and the things they were doing to each other is almost like a modern storytelling of, at least, American politics. But, yeah, I would highly recommend that if you want to learn more about the time surrounding the Council of Nicea, what was going on, who the players were, and, yeah, go check it out. Anyway, it’s a book by Richard Rubinstein titled When Jesus Became God. Now after the Council of Nicaea, things went back and forth. They had council after council and there was lots of councils within the fourth century.
And, generally, a lot of them had to do with this subject of the godhead. And they went back and forth. They went from a Benetarian or Athanasian understanding of the Council of Nasia, Then they switched over and they went to an Arian stance and then they went back to an Athanasian stance and back to an Arian stance and back and forth back and forth. And it all really depended on who was emperor at the time and which position the emperor favored. It really did.
But then, finally, up in the year March, we get the edict of Thessalonica. And this says, quote, it is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our clemency and moderation should continue to profess that religion what was which was delivered to the Romans, and which is now professed by the pontiff or Pope Damasus, and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty, and in a holy trinity. We order the followers of this law to embrace the name of Catholic Christians. But as for the others, since in our judgment, they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics.
They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation, and in the second, the punishment of our authority, which in accordance with the will of heaven, we shall decide to inflict. End quote. And that is the edict of Thessalonica, a governmental edict. One year later, in the council of Constantinople, they made it official religiously for the church. And so began the reign of Trinitarianism, and it was actually punishable by death.
They had the power of the sword at this point. And from that point on, it was Trinitarianism was put forth by force, not by evidence, not by the concept of truth or leaning on truth. It was put forth by force. Now that’s one thing to keep in mind too in our study here of Unitarianism. But let’s also keep in mind as well, you’d see this word trinity here, and it’s actually very interesting because we go back and we look and we remember what we read about Tertullian.
Tertullian was actually the first one to coin the word trinity, but he wasn’t a Trinitarian. And Trinitarianism actually didn’t come about until March. But Tertullian was a biblical Unitarian, but he was the first one to coin the term Trinity. So what did Tertullian mean when he used that word, trinitas? He actually meant a triad, meaning a grouping of three, not a trinity as the concept later became to be known.
But even though here in March when the Trinitarianism had the power of the sword, This did not do away with the people holding on to a belief in Unitarianism. It continued on just generally in silence. We go on and we look in history at a guy named Michael Cervatus. This is all the way up in the fifteen hundreds, but just let it be known, there was no silence of Unitarianism. It was just in the background because be killed if you come forth.
But Michael Cervatus, and he was born in 1511 in Villanueva, Spain. He was a physician, a theologian, an editor, and a translator amongst other things. He was educated in mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, geography, and anatomy, medicine, pharmacology, jurisprudence, poetry, scriptures in the original language, etcetera, etcetera. He was a very educated, very smart man. So this is not some idiot from a single wide trailer park that we’re talking about here.
He was very, very smart and he was actually one of the first ones or probably the first one to understand and describe the pulmonary system within the body because he himself was a physician. But anyways, in 1531, he published a theological work called On the Errors of the Trinity, De Trinitatis Erroribus, if I’m pronouncing that correctly in Latin. So he himself was a Unitarian and continuing in the Unitarian tradition, and he actually wrote a book against the trinity even though the Trinity had the power of the sword still. Then in 1553, he published another book called The Restoration of Christianity, and this again was against the concept or the doctrine of the Trinity. And once again, even though trinitarianism had the power of the sword.
They had the power of the sword through the Catholic church, and this is after the Protestant Reformation. But even so, Protestants in various areas had the power of the sword as well and they were not ashamed to wield that sword. In 1553, after he wrote the restoration of Christianity, he was actually martyred by John Calvin, and he was burnt alive because he was a Unitarian that did not go along with Trinitarianism. John Calvin actually had him killed because he disagreed with Calvin’s Trinitarianism. It said that his final words Michael Cervatus’ final words were, Jesus, son of the eternal God, have mercy on me.
And, you know, it could be vague as to which concept of the Godhead he held to, but taken in context, we know he was a Unitarian, and it’s reported that some people wanted him to confess belief in Jesus, the eternal son of God, that he would only say he believed in Jesus, son of the eternal God. You see that wordplay there, how that works out? So it’s obvious that Michael Cervatus was a non Trinitarian. He was a Unitarian. And some people actually dispute this account saying that John Calvin did not kill Michael Cervatus, but history has something else to say and so does John Calvin himself.
In fact, before Michael Sirvatus was killed by John Calvin, John Calvin actually said this, quote, for if Sirvatus comes here, meaning Geneva, if my authority is worth anything, I will never permit him to depart alive, end quote. And that’s so true. Michael Servais was on a trip, and he had to go through Geneva, who was which was controlled by John Calvin. And when he got to Geneva, he was spotted by John Calvin, and John Calvin had him detained in prison and eventually executed. He called the inquisition on Michael Cervatus and, as a result, had him killed.
Then John Calvin goes on to say this, quote, whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt. Many people have accused me of such ferocious cruelty that I would like to kill again the man that I have destroyed. Not only am I indifferent to their comments, but I rejoice in the fact that they spit in my face, end quote. So John Calvin was happy about killing Michael Cervatus and even admits as much. So, yeah, just put that little bit to rest.
But as we look throughout history, it’s not just Michael Cervatus that continues the belief in Unitarianism and actually speaks out. It’s others as well. In fact, we look at the year 1557, and we see John Sigismund establishing the Unitarian Academy or the John Sigismund Unitarian Academy. Then 1565, the Polish Brethren actually split from the Polish Calvinist Church. So they used to be Calvinist, used to be Trinitarians, and then they split and they’re they formed their own Unitarian church, and they call themselves the Polish brethren.
In 1568, the edict of Torta all the way down Transylvania issue was issued in granting religious freedom, which is really one of the first times in history that religious freedom had been permitted and granted. And this went for not only Unitarians but also Trinitarians and other people as well. And this happened down in Transylvania. And Transylvania is actually the only country that I’m aware of currently that was a Unitarian country as opposed to other countries which were Christian ruled and were Trinitarian in nature. Then in sixteen o two, the Rakovian Academy in Rachau and the printing press for the Rakovian Academy was established.
And then in sixteen o five, the Rakovian Catechism was published. And you can still find this for free online today. The Reykjavian Catechism is actually a publication stating the beliefs of Unitarians or at least as they saw it back then in sixteen o five. Then we move on in history up to 1825, and we see the American Unitarian Association created in Boston. So we got Unitarians over in America now even.
And keep in mind, this was before the 1961 merger of the Unitarian Association and the Universalist Association. Like I said, in the mid twentieth century, the Unitarian Universalist Church began, was invented and such. Yeah. Like I said, we’re not even gonna get into that, but keep in mind that starting about mid twentieth century, it really starts getting hard to distinguish who is who when you just use the word Unitarian. So but back in the early ’18 hundred’s, Unitarians were still Unitarians.
They were still Christians. They were not these non Christians that the Unitarian Universalists are nowadays. There’s also a lot of famous Unitarians that you probably didn’t know about as we go throughout history. The famous Isaac Newton, sir Isaac Newton was a Unitarian. Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, John Hancock, Abigail Adams, which who was the second first lady of The United States, who was married to the second president, obviously, of The United States, John Adams, who was also a Unitarian.
John Quincy Adams was a Unitarian. Herman Melville, who wrote Moby Dick. Susan b Anthony. Louisa May Elcott, who was the author of Little Women. William Howard Taft, who was both president and supreme court justice.
He was a Unitarian. In fact, he was the only person in American history to hold both positions, both president and supreme court justice. And this is just a short list of Unitarians throughout history that you probably didn’t know about because it’s usually suppressed and usually not talked about when these people come up because there are, unfortunately, some people in the world who don’t want other people to know that these other ideas or concepts exist. But, yeah, here are some famous Unitarians throughout history. So even though, like I said, in March or March when Trinitarianism got the power of the sword to enforce their concept, this did not do away with the other concepts, specifically what we’re studying tonight.
This did not do away with Unitarianism. So you’ve learned what Unitarianism is. You’ve gotten a little bit of history regarding Unitarianism. So if how do you go forth from here and learn more and straight from the horse’s mouth as it were? So here are some people and some ministries that are Unitarian today and that you can learn from or even probably contact if you would like to know more information.
Number one, Anthony Buzzard or sir Anthony Buzzard, who is down in Georgia. He has a ministry called twenty first Century Restoration. You can find him at 21stcr.org. And he is actually a teacher and professor, I think, down at Atlanta Bible College, which is a Unitarian institution. You can go look up Atlanta Bible College or even go attend there if you would like.
Then we got Focus on the Kingdom, which you can find at focusonthekingdom.0rg. Then you have the Unitarian Christian Alliance, and you can find them on YouTube and their website at UnitarianChristianAlliance.0rg. And, of course, these links and as far as the rest of the notes, they’re all gonna be available on the article post, which contains the notes that we took for this web this, episode. You can find all those on the notes, so go check it out on our website or click on the link down below in the description. You can also look up the ministry called Spirit and Truth.
You can find them on YouTube as well, or you can also find their website @stfi.0rg. Then there is the Trinity’s podcast from doctor Dale Tuggie. He is a Christian philosopher and he’s actually been promoting and upholding Unitarianism for a long time now, but you can find him on YouTube as well as other places and his website printatees.org. Another one is Transfigured and this is by a guy named Sam Titteman. And as far as I can find, he’s only got a YouTube channel.
So you got the link right here or you can go look on our notes for that convenient link as well. Again, that channel name is called Transfigured. And then finally, the last one we’ll look at, and there’s a lot more, but this is just the sampling that we’ve put up here. The last one we’re gonna look at is called the Biblical Unitarian Podcast, and this is by doctor Dustin Smith. And once again, I haven’t really found his website, but he has a YouTube channel called the Biblical Unitarian Podcast cast that you can find on YouTube or go to our notes.
Look in there for a convenient link that’ll take you directly to it. So in summary, let’s go over what we have covered during this particular episode. Number one. Unitarianism states that God consists of one person, that the father is God alone. That the son is not God, at least in the ultimate or primary sense of the title God.
That the Holy Spirit is not a person. And that the Holy Spirit is the essence, mind, life, and power of God the Father. Many early writers such as Tertullian, Arius, Justin Martyr, among others wrote things that were Unitarian in nature. And many denominations and people, as we’ve seen over the centuries and even today. A lot of people today are holding to the concept of Unitarianism.
Like I said, biblical Unitarianism. And that’s just the God honest truth.
