What is Biblical Unitarianism?

Unitarianism fifty years ago was confined to Unitarian Chapels. Christians would pass these buildings with a shudder. Unitarians believe in one God and refuse to believe in Father, Son and Holy Spirit—One God. They affirm that the Lord Jesus was only a Man—a good Man, who is our Example, but not our Saviour. They affirm that He died a martyr’s deaths but deny that it was sacrificial. They deny the very foundations of the Christian Faith. Today Unitarian belief has permeated nearly all sections of Christendom Therefore the testimony against these beliefs, or rather disbeliefs, needs to be explicit and insistent.

Unitarians profess to believe in one God, but deny that there are three Persons in the Godhead. Consequently they hold that Christ was only a man, that He died as a martyr, but that there is no atonement in His death. Indeed, they believe that no atonement was needed, for they hold that man has not fallen from his original condition, and, on repentance, will be forgiven. They also deny eternal punishment.

Unitarian beliefs, once confined to Unitarian chapels, now alas! permeating largely other sections of the professing church, go still further in their denial of the plain statements of Scripture. They deny the Deity of our Lord, they allow Him to have been a good man, but only a man. They deny the atoning value of His death, but hold Him up as a great example to the human race. Christians are indeed exhorted to follow in the footsteps of Christ as an Example (1 Peter 2:21), but, it is as SAVED PERSONS, they are thus exhorted.

Unitarianism affirms the oneness of the Godhead, but denies the truth of the Trinity—God, the Father; God, the Son; God, the Holy Spirit; Three in One; One in Three, One omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God, the one Eternal Supreme Creator, “which is, and which was, and which is to come” (Rev. 1:4).

At one time Unitarianism was confined to Unitarian chapels, where the Deity of our Lord was denied, and as a consequence the atoning character of His death refused. Christ was extolled as a wonderful man, but no more. Their teaching was to set forth Christ as an Example to be followed, whilst He was stoutly refused as a Saviour. Alas! there is little need for separate Unitarian chapels today as Unitarian beliefs have largely spread among the formerly orthodox churches. A man or woman holding Unitarian belief cannot be a Christian. Their teaching is blasphemy.

It has been pointed out how popular blasphemies are contradicted in Genesis 1. Take Unitarianism, that cold negation of Christianity which, whilst extolling Christ’s humanity, denies His Godhead and atoning work. The fact of “God” being in the plural in Genesis 1:1, denies the affirmation of the Unitarian that there are not three persons in the Godhead, but indicates it, which is borne out by the whole teaching of Scripture abundantly. Then it contradicts Pantheism, which affirms that God is only seen in created matter, whilst Genesis 1:1, makes God the Creator of the heaven and the earth, and surely this Creator existed before what He created, and is therefore outside of what He created.

Modern Unitarianism denies the Lord Jesus to be more than man, and thus even His supernatural birth of the Virgin Mary, though Socinus asserted the singular modification of such an exaltation after His resurrection as constituted Him an adequate Object of divine worship. Arius seemed to approach the truth on the side of His pre-existence before He came into the world, owned that He, the Son of God, made the universe, but maintained that He was Himself created, though the very first and highest of creatures.

The view that they had of Jesus was just that of the modern Unitarian. They were altogether convinced of His humanity, for they were so well acquainted with its origins as far as His flesh was concerned. They saw it so clearly that it blinded them to anything beyond, and they were offended in Him. The Unitarian sees His humanity, but nothing beyond. We see His humanity no less clearly than the Unitarian, but beyond it we see His deity. It does not trouble us that we cannot grasp intellectually how both can be found in Him. Knowing that our minds are finite, we do not expect to explain that into which infinity enters. If we could grasp and explain, we should know that what we thus comprehend is not Divine.

UNITARIANS TEACH THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD, THE FATHER

Unitarians are fond of quoting the well-known affirmation of the Oneness of God, “Hear O Israel; the LORD our God is one LORD” (Deut. 6:4). But do the Unitarians take care to give the real meaning of this Scripture? Do they inform us of a most remarkable feature in the Hebrew language? It possesses no less than THREE numbers: SINGULAR, one only; DUAL, two only; PLURAL, three or more.

This is a most arresting feature of Hebrew grammar. God, who gave speech to our first parents, must have designed this special plural for a very definite purpose. We can trace this most plainly in the verse we have just quoted. Bearing this in mind the verse reads thus: “Hear O Israel: The LORD [Jehovah, singular] our God [Elohim, plural] is one LORD [Jehovah, singular].” Here is an arresting statement of the Oneness of God, yet along with it care is equally taken to give a very clear and unmistakable intimation of the truth of the Holy Trinity,—Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One in Three, and Three in One, ONE GOD.

How does the Unitarian explain the use of the word, Father, when he affirms that the only God is “God, THE FATHER”? The Scriptures teach that the Lord Jesus was from all eternity the unique Son of God, that is, as being THE ETERNAL SON along with the Holy Father, Son and Holy Spirit—in the unity of the Godhead. This the Unitarians deny, affirming that our Lord was “wholly man.” In relation to believers on the Lord Jesus Christ Scripture teaches us that they have received the adoption of sons (Gal. 4:5), not as altering their relation to the Creator as creatures, not as lifting them to the level of Deity, that were impossible, but as being “partakers of the Divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), that is they have the moral qualities of that Divine nature, such as love, holiness, truth, tenderness, compassion—graces seen in all their loveliness in our Lord when here among men.

And when we come to the New Testament we find the same truth enunciated. Why does the Apostle John, referring plainly to our Lord Jesus Christ, tell us that, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:1-3); and that, “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The meaning of this profound passage is most manifest. The Word was GOD—Deity. The Word became flesh—Humanity (sin apart). In the simplest language, and yet in a most profound and blessed way, we have presented to us the mystery of the Person of our Lord, and that in fulfilment of the prophecies of the Old Testament many centuries before. Could there be a grander and clearer presentation of the Lord’s Godhead and Manhood as presented to us in John’s Gospel? Do not the cold negations of Unitarianism stand utterly condemned in the presence of this glorious truth? Unitarianism has no Saviour, no atoning sacrifice to meet God’s holy demands as to sin, nothing but barren sterility in the things of God, nothing to offer a poor needy sinner.