Refuting All Trinitarian ‘Proof-Texts’
The Acts of the Apostles
Acts 1:11-12: Jesus is taken up bodily from the Mount of Olives, and it is said that He will return in the same way. However, in the OT, it is Yahweh Himself Who returns bodily to the Mount of Olives on the Day of the Lord (Zech. 14:3-4).
Even if this passage does intentionally refer back to Zechariah 14, that doesn’t show that Jesus is one and the same as Yahweh. As the Messiah, Jesus is an agent of God, which means that God works through and in him (see John 14:10-11; Acts 2:22; 2 Cor. 5:19). Thus, Jesus’ actions are also God’s actions in a way, even though he isn’t numerically one with God. The same was true of God’s human agents in the Old Testament (e.g., Exod. 7:17-21; 14:14-16, 21; Judg. 2:16-18). Thus, Jesus’ return to Mount Olivet is Yahweh’s return to Mount Olivet, regardless of whether Jesus is one and the same as Yahweh.
Acts 2:17-18, 33: Peter quotes Joel 2:28-29 in which “Yahweh your God” promises that He Himself will pour out the Spirit. However, he then goes on to state that it is Jesus who is pouring out the Spirit.
Acts 2:33 says, “Jesus… having received from the Father the promise of the holy spirit, has poured out this that you see and hear.” In agreement with this, Paul writes that the Father “poured out this spirit on us richly through Jesus the Messiah our Lord” (Titus 3:4-6). And Jesus himself repeatedly spoke of the holy spirit as the gift of the Father (John 14:26; 15:26; Acts 1:4, 5). Thus, the Father gave the gift of the holy spirit to Jesus, who then poured it out upon believers. As such, it is true that both God and the Messiah poured out the holy spirit, and this does not mean that Jesus is God.
Acts 3:14: Peter refers to Jesus as “the Holy and Righteous One,” a name which belongs to Yahweh alone in the OT (see esp. Isa. 17:7; 24:16; 43:15; 57:15).
The cited passages in Isaiah do refer to Yahweh as “the Holy One” and “the Righteous One,” but many humans are also referred to as holy (Mark 6:20; Luke 1:70; Acts 3:21; Rom. 1:7; Eph. 1:4) and righteous (Matt. 1:19; Mark 6:20; Luke 1:5-6; Acts 10:22, 35; 2 Cor. 6:14). Jesus, who was sinless, was truly more holy and righteous than any of these humans, so it is right to refer to him as “the holy and righteous one” regardless of whether he is God. Furthermore, Jesus is elsewhere referred to as “the holy one of God” (Mark 1:24; John 6:69), which precludes the idea that being the holy one means he is God.
Acts 5:3-4, 9: By parallelism the Holy Spirit is both “God” and “the Spirit of the Lord.”
The holy spirit is synonymous with God’s personal presence (Psa. 51:11; 139:7) and God Himself (1 Sam. 16:14; 18:12). Therefore, by lying to God within himself, Ananias was lying to the holy spirit. This does not imply that the holy spirit is a person separate from God; rather, it is one of His attributes.
Acts 7:52: See note on Acts 3:14.
See my response to the note on Acts 3:14.
Acts 7:59: It is Jesus Who receives the spirit of Stephen upon his death. However, according to the OT, the spirit of a man returns to God at death, because it is He Who first gave it (Ecc. 12:7).
No, the fact that Jesus received Stephen’s spirit doesn’t mean that he is God. Many Jews during this period believed that their spirits would be received by Abraham at death, [1] but they obviously didn’t think that Abraham was God. Alternatively, Stephen could have been calling upon Jesus to receive the holy spirit which he was “full of” (v. 55). After his resurrection, Jesus was given the privilege to pour out — and, presumably, to take back — the holy spirit (Acts 2:33).
Acts 10:43: “All the prophets testify of [Jesus], that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” The OT prophets never say such a thing about any human or derivative god, but only about Yahweh alone.
This isn’t true. Many of the OT prophets say this about the future Messiah, in contexts where he is distinguished from God (Deut. 18:18-19; Isa. 11:10-12; 49:3-7; 52:13-15; 53:11; Jer. 23:5-6; Mal. 3:1-4).
Acts 16:31: When the Philippian jailer asks Paul how to be saved, he responds, “Have faith in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” This echoes many other statements in the NT about Jesus as the object of the believer’s faith (e.g., John 3:16; 11:25; 14:1; Gal. 2:16). But God is the sole object of faith in both the Old and New Testament (Lev. 19:4; Psa. 40:4; 118:8; 146:3, 5; Isa. 42:17; Mark 11:22; Heb. 11:6); so Jesus must be truly God.
It isn’t true that God is the sole object of faith, although He is the ultimate object of faith. When God parted the Red Sea through His prophet Moses, the people of Israel “put their faith in Yahweh and in His servant Moses” (Exod. 14:31). Likewise, it is said of the Davidic king, “Blessed are all those who put their faith in him” (Psa. 2:12). How much more, then, should we put our faith in the Messiah, Jesus?
Jesus is not believed in as God, but in addition to God; he exhorts his disciples, “You believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1; cf. 1 Cor. 8:6; Rev. 5:13-14). Unlike his Father, Jesus is not believed in as the ultimate object of faith, but as the Messiah and agent of God, through whom we believe in God (John 12:44; Phil. 2:11; 1 Pet. 1:21). Therefore, this doesn’t show that Jesus is God, but that Jesus is the Messiah, the ideal agent of God.
Acts 20:28: Paul exhorts the elders at Ephesus to “shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” Since it is, of course, Jesus Who purchased the church with His blood, this is likely another instance in which Jesus is referred to as “the God” (ho theos). However, it is possible to translate it alternately as “…which He purchased with the blood of His own [Son],” although this has the problem that “His own” (ho idios) is never elsewhere used on its own to describe Jesus.
Early (pre-600) manuscripts containing this verse are divided between “the church of the Lord” (kuriou) and “the church of God” (theou). [2] However, the majority of critical texts support the reading “the church of God.” The end of the verse is more controversial, with critical texts supporting the reading “the blood of His own” (tou haimatos tou idiou), while the Majority Text and Textus Receptus read, “His own blood” (tou idiou haimatos). From a text critical standpoint, “the blood of His own” is the most likely reading, as virtually all early (pre-600) manuscripts have this reading. [3]
Due to the text critical issues with this verse, it makes for a rather weak trinitarian prooftext; only one out of four possible readings supports the deity of Jesus, and this happens to be the least likely reading. Bible scholars Murray J. Harris and Brian Wright, both trinitarians, describe this verse as “dubious” or “unlikely” to support the deity of Christ. [4] Instead, this verse is most likely saying that God purchased the church with “the blood of His own,” and “His own” implies the close familial relationship between God and His Son (cf. Rom. 8:34; 1 Tim. 5:8). [5]
Acts 22:14: See note on Acts 3:14.
See my response to the note on Acts 3:14.
Acts 28:25-27: According to Paul, it was the Holy Spirit Who spoke in Isa. 6:8-10. In the original context of the passage, it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks.
God inspired His prophets, including Isaiah, through His holy spirit (Num. 11:25-29; 24:2; 1 Sam. 10:6, 10; 2 Sam. 23:2; 2 Chron. 15:1; 24:20; Neh. 9:30; Isa. 59:21; 61:1-3; Ezek. 3:24; 11:5; Zech. 7:12). As such, when a prophet speaks, it can also be said that the holy spirit speaks, even though the holy spirit isn’t a person separate from God (2 Sam. 23:1-2; Acts 13:1-2). This is why Paul said that it was the holy spirit that spoke “through Isaiah the prophet” (Acts 28:25). Therefore, this does not show that the holy spirit is a person, much less a person co-equal with God.
Refuting All Trinitarian ‘Proof-Texts’
The Acts of the Apostles
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[1] 4 Maccabees 13.17; Luke 16:22; Genesis Rabbah 68.
[2] theou א B Athanasius Basil Chrysostom Ambrose // kuriou 𝔓74 A C D E 181 Irenaeus(lat) Didymus(lat) Theodoret Jerome Pelagius
[3] haimatos tou idiou 𝔓74 א A B C D E 181 Irenaeus(lat) Theodoret // idiou haimatos Athanasius Chrysostom
[4] Murray J. Harris, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1992), 141; Brian James Wright, “Jesus as Θεος: Scriptural Fact or Scribal Fantasy?,” (2007), table 2.
[5] “This absolute use of ho idios is found in Greek papyri as a term of endearment referring to close relatives.” Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London: United Bible Societies, 1994), 427.
[3] haimatos tou idiou 𝔓74 א A B C D E 181 Irenaeus(lat) Theodoret // idiou haimatos Athanasius Chrysostom
[4] Murray J. Harris, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1992), 141; Brian James Wright, “Jesus as Θεος: Scriptural Fact or Scribal Fantasy?,” (2007), table 2.
[5] “This absolute use of ho idios is found in Greek papyri as a term of endearment referring to close relatives.” Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London: United Bible Societies, 1994), 427.
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