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Part 2 of a 3 Part Series — From the Pentagon to Revelation 13: A Conversation That Went Further Than Expected

Missed Part 1? Here’s a quick recap

On June 7, 2026, the Pentagon removed the LDS Church from its "Christian" category — sparking bipartisan backlash and a question with a 1,700-year answer. Part 1 traced how Emperor Constantine used the Council of Nicaea to forge a politically convenient doctrine of the Trinity, replaced the biblical seventh-day Sabbath with the Roman sun-god's holy day, and set in motion a pattern of state-enforced doctrine that destroyed three kingdoms, and later prescribed boring through the tongue — and eventually death — for anyone in colonial Maryland who denied it. The instrument of enforcement changed across the centuries. The mechanism never did.

[Click Here to Read Part 1]

Part 2: Jesus Never Taught the Tenets of Trinity Doctrine. He Taught Something Else Entirely.

Q: In John 17:3, Jesus calls His Father “the only true God.” Was He quoting an Old Testament text?

A: Almost certainly. Jeremiah 10:10 states: “But Jehovah is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King.”

In John 17:3 — His most intimate prayer — Jesus says: “This is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

The parallel is unmistakable. Jesus is directly identifying His Father as the Jehovah of Jeremiah 10:10 . And critically, Jesus places himself in the role of the one sent — a distinct being from the “only true God.” If Jesus were himself the “only true God,” this sentence would be logically incoherent. You cannot be sent by yourself.

Q: Since Moses identified Jehovah as the Creator in Genesis 2:1-5, does the New Testament show the Father as Creator? Was His Son involved also?

A: Five passages establish this with remarkable consistency:

Hebrews 1:1-2 — God spoke through His Son, “by whom also He made the worlds” — the Father initiates, the Son is the instrument.

1 Corinthians 8:6 — “One God, the Father, of whom are all things... and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things.” Paul draws an explicit two-tier structure: one God equals the Father; one Lord equals Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 3:9 — “God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.”

Colossians 1:15-16 — The Son is “the image of the invisible God” — you don’t image yourself — and “by Him all things were created.”

John 3:16 — “God so loved the world that He gave His only-born{Greek: monogenes} Son.” The Father gives. The Son is given.

Paul’s formulation in 1 Corinthians 8:6 is particularly precise. He appears to be consciously reframing the Shema — “Jehovah our Elohim, Jehovah is one” ( Deuteronomy 6:4 ) — for a Christian audience. The one God of the Shema is the Father. Jesus is the one Lord through whom the Father works. Two distinct identities, one unified purpose.

Q: Do these two texts also challenge Trinitarian theology? — John 14:6 and 1 Timothy 2:5 .

A: John 14:6 — “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

If Jesus were co-equal and co-substantial with the Father — the same God in a different person — the concept of Jesus being a way to the Father becomes logically strained. A way leads somewhere you are not. Jesus is pointing toward the Father as a distinct destination, with Himself as the path( Genesis 28:10-13; John 1:50-51 ).

1 Timothy 2:5 — “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men — the man Christ Jesus.”

Paul does several things simultaneously: reaffirms one God consistent with 1 Corinthians 8:6; identifies one mediator — singular; and calls Jesus the man — deliberately emphasizing His humanity as the basis of His mediatorial role. The structure implies God and mediator are distinct. You cannot mediate between yourself.

Q: The Greek word parákletos is used only five times — all in John’s writings. How does John identify the parákletos? How does Jesus identify the parákletos?

A: The five uses reveal a pattern that fundamentally reframes the Holy Spirit question:

  1. In John 14:16 , “Another{Greek: állos} parákletos” is promised by Jesus.
  2. In John 14:26, Jesus identifies the parákletos as the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father in Jesus’ name.
  3. In John 15:26, Jesus speaks of the parákletos as to be sent from the Father.
  4. In John 16:7, Jesus said the parákletos will be sent after His departure.
  5. In 1 John 2:1, after Jesus returned to Heaven, John identifies Jesus Christ as the parákletos.

John directly calls Jesus the parákletos. This single verse reframes everything Jesus says in John 14-16. When Jesus says in John 14:16, “I will ask the Father and He will give you another parákletos,” the Greek word for “another” is állos. For more information, see: A word Study on the Greek word állos.

Then Jesus transitions seamlessly in John 14:18: “I will not leave you as orphans — I will come to you.” Not “He will come.” Jesus says “I will come.”

The Holy Spirit is the personal presence of Christ returning to dwell within believers — not a third independent being arriving separately.

Q: Is it true that there are no disembodied intelligent beings in the Bible, except when the disciples mistakenly thought Jesus was a ghost?

A: Precisely. In Matthew 14:26, the disciples see Jesus walking on water and cry out “It is a phantasma!” — a phantom. Also, in Luke 24:37-39, they think the risen Jesus might be a ghost, and He immediately corrects them: “A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

Both times, Jesus dismantles the category rather than validating it.

Hebrews 1 adds a crucial layer. In verses 7 and 14, angels are called pneumata — spirits, winds:

“He makes His angels winds (pneumata)” — verse 7 “Are they not all ministering spirits (pneumata) sent to serve?” — verse 14

The same word used throughout the New Testament for the English word “Spirit” is used here for angels — created beings serving within God’s government. This clarifies that pneuma describes a category of being or words( John 6:63 ), not exclusively a divine person.

Q: What does John 3:34-36, 6:63, and 12:43-50 tell us about the true identity of the Holy Spirit?

A: These three passages form one of the most unified statements about pneuma in the entire New Testament:

John 3:34 — “God gives the pneuma without measure to Him{Jesus}.” The Father is the source. The Son is the receiver. The pneuma flows directionally — from Father to Son — as the Father’s own life-giving words and power fully residing in Christ.

John 6:63 — “It is the pneuma that gives life. The words that I speak to you are pneuma and are life.” Jesus directly equates His words(teachings) with the pneuma. The life-giving words of the Father, residing fully in His Son, is expressed and transmitted to believers through Christ’s words.

John 12:49-50 — “I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has given me a commandment — what to say and what to speak. His commandment is eternal life.”

The chain is now complete:

  1. Father gives pneuma without measure to the Son →
  2. Father commands the Son what to say →
  3. Son speaks those words, which are pneuma and life →
  4. Believers receive the words of eternal life.

This connects directly back to Creation. In Genesis 2:7, Jehovah breathed into Adam and he became a living soul. In John 20:22, Jesus literally breathed on His disciples and said “Receive the Holy Pneuma” — performing the identical action, passing the Father’s breath/words directly to them.

The Holy Spirit is not a separate autonomous person delivering independent revelation. It is the Father’s own breath, life, and word — fully given to the Son, expressed through the Son’s words, transmitted to believers through those words.

Q: Does Revelation 1:1-2, combined with Jacob’s ladder and Jesus’s interpretation in John 1:51, and Hebrews 1, take this understanding further?

A: Revelation 1:1-2 makes the chain of communication explicit:

“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants... He made it known by sending His angel to His servant John.” (In Revelation 22:16, we see: “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you{John}…”)

Jehovah → Jesus Christ → Angel → John → Believers

In a co-equal trinity, information doesn’t flow downward through a chain. Co-equal persons don’t receive revelation from one another and pass it through intermediaries. But this is exactly what scripture describes.

Then Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28:12 — angels ascending and descending between heaven and earth — is interpreted by Jesus Himself in John 1:51: “You will see the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Jesus replaces the ladder with Himself. He is the structural connection between Jehovah and humanity — the living ladder, the way, the one mediator. The angels — themselves pneumata as Hebrews 1 establishes — operate through Him, not independently around Him.

The complete architecture:

  1. Jehovah (Father) — source of all ↓
  2. Jesus Christ — the ladder, the mediator, the only-born Son ↓
  3. Angels — ministering pneumata, ascending and descending on the Son ↓
  4. Believers — receiving the words, the pneuma, life eternal.

Q: Based on all of this — what is a true biblical definition of “Christian”?

A: The Greek word Christianos appears exactly three times in the New Testament — Acts 11:26; Acts 26:28; 1 Peter 4:16 — and every instance simply means one who belongs to or follows Christ. No creed. No metaphysical formula. No trinitarian test.

Jesus provided His own defining markers:

These following ideas are absent from Jesus’s own definition:

Jesus also stated eight times in the Gospel of John that He spoke nothing of His own authority — only what the Father commanded:

  1. “The Son can do nothing of His own accord” ( Jn5:19 ).
  2. “I can do nothing on my own” ( Jn5:30 ).
  3. “My teaching is not mine, but His who sent me” ( Jn7:16 ).
  4. “he that sent me is true; and the things which I heard from him, these speak I unto the world.” ( Jn8:26 )
  5. “I do nothing on my own authority but speak just as the Father taught me” ( Jn8:28 ).
  6. “The Father has given me a commandment — what to say and speak” ( Jn12:49 ).
  7. “The words I say I do not speak on my own authority” ( Jn14:10 ).
  8. “The word you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me” ( Jn14:24 ).

And John 12:48 establishes the standard of final judgment, when Jesus said: “The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.”

We will be judged by the Father’s words, transmitted through the Son. Not by a creed. Not by a council formula developed 300 years after Christ, but by the actual words Jesus spoke — which never once mention, but often contradict, the tenets of the trinity doctrine.

So, is it possible that using acceptance of the trinity as the determining criterion of Christianity is entirely backwards? Not only possible — it is the logical conclusion the biblical evidence compels.

Research for this article was conducted with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic), an AI language model. I have personally edited all content to be consistent with my current understanding of these topics. -Sid

This is Part 2 of 3. Part 3 examines what two popes said about the Trinity, what a 2015 papal encyclical addressed to every person on earth proposed about Sunday worship, and what Revelation 13 says about where all of this leads.

Part 3 available now => https://sidnash.substack.com/p/the-vatican-said-lead-all-people