I pass to another passage in the first Epistle of John:84 “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true: and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” In the first place, the Trinitarian mistake upon this passage is perpetuated without just reason, from the introduction most improperly of the word “even” into the text, there being no word in the original answering to it, as is shown by the use of the italic type. In the next place, the chief difficulty arises from the pronoun rendered “This” often made to refer to the nearest antecedent or “Jesus Christ.” But Grotius says: “The pronoun this not unfrequently relates to a remote antecedent, as in Acts 7:19, (where it is rendered ‘the same’;) id. 10:6,” (where it is rendered “he”85;) and Vater: “There is no reason why the words this is the true God should not he referred to the same, (Him that is true,) though grammatically they belong to the proximate antecedent Christ.” Both these are Trinitarian authorities; but I cannot omit citing from another of the same class more at length. Lucke, in his comment on the passage,86 says: “1. The emphatic tone of the preposition renders it necessary to refer ‘this’ to the prevailing chief subject of the preceding preposition. But this is God, ‘Him that is true,’ and not Christ, who only is mentioned parenthetically, as he through whose mediation the being in Him that is true is effected. 2. Further, as God above is by excellence, and without any word additional, called ‘The True,’ (compare John 17:3,87) and Christ never is so styled by St. John; ‘this’ can, according to all rules of logical interpretation, not be referred to Christ, but to God, unless we are determined to charge St. John with an intentional confusion of ideas. 3. The authors of the New Testament never use the same predicate and name for the Father and the Son of God, when they speak of each distinctly. Here it is plain that they are distinctly spoken of. If, then, ‘this’ here ought to be referred to Christ, we should have a confusion of names and predicates, to which there would be no parallel in the New Testament. Finally, 4. St. John indeed calls the Logos of God in Christ, God, in John 1:1; but the historical Christ he never does so designate, but always as Son of God. But let us suppose that St. John intended to designate Christ as the True God, for what reason does he introduce that designation in this particular place? Are we to suppose that without demonstration, without preparation of any kind, nay, even contrary to the nearest context, he introduced such an important, and with him unusual proposition,” (I beg my readers to note the strength of these expressions by a Trinitarian writer,) “in such an equivocal form as a straggler at the end of the epistle—that he did so introduce a proposition, to which nothing resembling it occurs in the whole epistle, and to which no satisfactory clue is to be found in the Gospel which mentions as God only the Logos or Word in Christ—always speaks of the Christ who appeared in the flesh as Son of God—and says of the Father of Jesus Christ, John 17:3, that He is ‘the Only True God’? Never! And the warning against idols, plain and well-grounded as it appears, if ‘this’ is referred to God, how obscure and unconnected, nay, how confused must it appear to the reader when, besides God, Christ also is mentioned as the True God! These are sufficient grounds for declaring, that the only right construction is to refer ‘This is the True God’ to GOD.”
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Author: Frederick A. Farley
Keywords: Trinity, Trinitarian, trinitarianism, Deity of Jesus, Deity of Christ, Jesus is God, Jesus is divine, Divinity of Jesus, divinity of Christ
Bible reference(s): 1 John 5:20
Source: Unitarianism Defined (Boston: Walker, Wise & Co., 1935).
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