Recently I picked up on a letter that was penned by Unitarian, Dale Tuggy, on his blog titled: “A Letter from the Lord Jesus: About God and Me”. In this letter Tuggy writes as if the Jesus of Unitarianism, who denies His Deity, and His functional understanding of the Doctrine of the Trinity is a ligitimate rendering of the Historical Jesus. When reading through the article, it should be noted that his letter presents a Jesus who is fundamentally different from the Jesus revealed in the Scriptures. Tuggy’s central argument is that Jesus Christ was exclusively a human Messiah, that He never possessed the divine nature, that He was not God incarnate, and that the doctrine of the Trinity represents a later theological corruption of apostolic Christianity. This position must be challenged directly. The Jesus presented in this letter is not the Jesus proclaimed by the apostles. He is a reconstructed Jesus, created by selectively interpreting certain passages while explaining away, reinterpreting, or effectively neutralising others that explicitly affirm His divine identity. There is an especially serious problem with the approach. The author writes an imaginary letter in the first person, placing his own theological conclusions into the mouth of Jesus which seems to be no different from the conceptions about Christ from the prophet Muhammad, Joseph Smith, or even Blavatsky. The original accompanying presentation even uses a deliberately fictitious golden-plates narrative. This is a modern theological polemic, not an ancient document, an apostolic testimony, or a historical saying of Christ. We must therefore put this imagined Jesus aside and return to the testimony of the actual Jesus revealed in the canonical Gospels, the testimony of His apostles, and the wider witness of Scripture. My central contention is straightforward, Jesus is not the Father, but He is no less truly God. He is the eternal Son, the Word made flesh, fully divine and fully human. His submission to the Father does not negate His deity; His humanity does not cancel His divinity; and His death does not mean that the divine nature ceased to exist. Further, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity does not confuse the Father with the Son. It distinguishes the persons while confessing the one divine being. That distinction is essential to understanding the New Testament.

The Father and the Son are distinct persons, but both are truly God

One of the fundamental errors in this letter is its repeated insistence that because Jesus is not the Father, He therefore cannot be God. This is a false dichotomy. Christianity has never taught that Jesus is the Father. Christianity teaches that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, while there remains only one God. The distinction between the Father and Son is not a problem for Trinitarian theology. It is an essential part of it. The Apostle John begins his Gospel with a statement that should immediately challenge the letter’s central premise (John 1:1–3). John establishes three things:

  • The Word already existed in the beginning.

  • The Word was distinct from God in His personal relationship with the Father.

  • The Word was Himself God.

John does not write that the Word was merely God’s thought, intention, wisdom, or impersonal utterance. He writes that the Word was God and that everything that came into existence came through Him. Then John 1:14 delivers the extraordinary conclusion, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” It does not matter how you try to spin it, the greek is emphatic, and the context clear. 

John 1:1–3 presents a clear and profound distinction between the identity of the Son and his personal relationship with the Father. The Greek construction; “kai theos ēn ho logos” (“and the Word was God”) uses theos without the definite article, emphasising the Word’s divine nature rather than suggesting that he is the same person as the Father.

As respected Greek scholar Daniel B. Wallace explains, the anarthrous theos is qualitative in this context: the Word possesses the very nature of God. Yet John also says that the Word was with God (pros ton theon), distinguishing the Word personally from the Father. Verses 2–3 then make the claim unmistakable: the Word existed in the beginning, and all things came into being through him. Jesus is therefore not a created being or a lesser deity; he is truly God, eternally distinct from the Father, and active in creation. This interpretation is supported by Philip B. Harner’s landmark grammatical study, “Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1” (Journal of Biblical Literature 92, 1973, pp. 75–87), and Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (1996, pp. 266–269).

Importantly, as scholar Leon Morris observes, John is not merely describing Jesus as possessing something divine; he is affirming that the Word is God. This is the incarnation. The eternal Word did not simply inhabit a human being, nor did God merely empower an ordinary man. The Word Himself became human. The distinction is important. John 1:1 says the Word was with God, indicating personal distinction, and that the Word was God, affirming divine identity. Prof. Jan van der Watt, a New Testament scholar at the University of the Free State, makes an important observation in his article He Was with God and Was God?

They are not the same, but nevertheless the word θεός is used to refer to both.

This is precisely the distinction the letter fails to understand. The Father and Son are not the same person, but the Son is not excluded from deity. Van der Watt, 2018. The letter also overlooks John 20:28, where Thomas responds directly to the resurrected Jesus as “My Lord and my God!” Thomas does not say, “My Lord, and my God who is working through you.” He addresses Jesus Himself. John 20:28 provides one of the strongest and most explicit affirmations of Christ’s deity in the New Testament. When Thomas encounters the risen Jesus, he declares,)“My Lord and my God!” (ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou).

Grammatically and contextually, both titles are addressed directly to Jesus, not to the Father or as an expression of general astonishment. Jesus does not correct Thomas; instead, he accepts his confession and pronounces a blessing on those who believe without seeing. Significantly, this confession forms the climax of John’s Gospel, reinforcing the opening declaration in John 1:1: the Word was God. The distinction between Jesus and the Father remains intact, but Thomas unmistakably identifies the risen Jesus as God.

The Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary explicitly rejects the interpretation that Thomas was merely expressing astonishment towards God, arguing that the grammatical construction and the phrase “he said to him” establish Jesus as the direct recipient of both titles. The theological significance: John 1:1 establishes who Christ eternally is; John 20:28 establishes who the risen Christ is confessed to be. The Son is not the Father, but neither is he anything less than God. This is precisely the distinction and unity of divine identity that Trinitarian theology seeks to preserve. Jesus does not correct Thomas. He does not tell him that he has committed idolatry or confused the Father with the Son.

Instead, Jesus responds by affirming the blessing of those who believe. Van der Watt describes Thomas’s confession as forming the apex of John’s narrative. He explicitly observes that Thomas addresses the resurrected Jesus as his Lord and God. Van der Watt, 2018. The question this letter of Tuggy must answer is simple. 

If Jesus was merely a human being, why does the Gospel of John conclude with one of its most significant confessions of faith being addressed directly to Him as God? John 1:1 establishes who Christ eternally is; John 20:28 establishes who the risen Christ is confessed to be. The Son is not the Father, but neither is he anything less than God. This is precisely the distinction and unity of divine identity that Trinitarian theology seeks to preserve.

The author cannot simply explain this away by suggesting that the Father was working through Jesus. That is not what Thomas said. Furthermore, Hebrews 1:8 is particularly important.  The Father addresses the Son as God, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.”

The passage quotes Psalm 45:6–7, applying its royal language directly to Jesus. Grammatically, the expression ho theos (ὁ θεός) is best understood here as a vocative of address as; “O God”; meaning that the Father is addressing the Son as God. In verse 9, the Father then speaks of “God, your God,” who has anointed the Son, demonstrating that the Son is personally distinct from the Father without being excluded from the divine identity. The passage therefore holds together two essential truths: the Son is truly God, and the Son is not the Father.

Murray J. Harris, in his influential study, “The Translation and Significance of ὁ θεός in Hebrews 1:8–9”, argues that the vocative interpretation is strongly supported by Greek grammar, the Septuagint quotation and the immediate context. He concludes that the Son shares the divine nature and is distinguished from the angels by his very identity.

Unitarians like Tuggy might lament that one alternative translation could be, “God is your throne,” is grammatically possible, but the NET Bible’s translators consider it unlikely in context. The writer of Hebrews does not confuse the Father and the Son. Yet he applies the designation God to the Son. This is biblical Christology, not an imaginative reconstruction.

Jesus claimed considerably more than being an ordinary human Messiah

The letter repeatedly argues that Jesus only claimed to be the Messiah and that His enemies never accused Him of claiming anything beyond this. This assertion is demonstrably false. Consider John 5:18. The Gospel explicitly explains that Jesus’ opponents sought to kill Him because He was calling God His own Father, thereby making Himself equal with God.

John 5:18 is particularly significant because the Gospel writer explicitly explains that Jesus’ opponents understood his claim to God as his own Father as making himself equal with God. The Greek expression ison heauton poiōn tō Theō (ἴσον ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν τῷ θεῷ) literally conveys the idea of making himself equal with God. This is not merely a misunderstanding that can be dismissed, because Jesus’ subsequent response in verses 19–23 further develops the claim: whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (v. 19); the Son gives life (v. 21); the Father entrusts all judgment to the Son (v. 22); and, most emphatically, everyone must honour the Son just as they honour the Father (v. 23). Jesus is not claiming to be the Father; rather, he establishes his unique equality with the Father in divine authority, works and honour. As the NET Bible’s exegetical notes explain, Jesus is claiming divine prerogatives that belong to God alone.

John 5:18–23 presents neither two gods nor one person pretending to be two. It presents the Son as personally distinct from the Father while sharing divine authority, life-giving power and the honour that belongs to God. The author cannot dismiss this passage without explaining why John provides this interpretation of the controversy. Also, Consider John 10:27–33. Jesus declares that He gives His sheep eternal life and that nobody can snatch them out of His hand. He then explains that nobody can snatch them out of His Father’s hand.

He then concludes “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30). His opponents immediately take up stones. Their accusation is explicit. “You, being a man, make yourself God.” (John 10:33). Usually, Unitarians will insist that we cannot take the Jews witness as the emphatic reason why we should believe who Jesus really was, but that would miss the author John’s exact point…They got it, and that is why John is writing about it!  The letter of Tuggy attempts to reduce this statement to the idea that Jesus and the Father were simply engaged in the same business. But this interpretation neglects the immediate context. Jesus is claiming authority to give eternal life, preserve His sheep, and exercise a divine prerogative in perfect unity with His Father.

Notice also John 5:19–23. Jesus explains that the Son does whatever the Father does. He specifically refers to the Father’s power to raise the dead and give life, and then declares that the Son gives life to whomever He wishes. Then comes the decisive statement in verse 23 that “All must honour the Son just as they honour the Father.” Not merely with similar respect. Not merely with the gratitude one gives to a human representative. The same honour is due to the Son as to the Father.

John 5:19–23 develops one of the most substantial Christological arguments in John’s Gospel. Jesus declares that whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise (v. 19). This is an extraordinary claim because Jesus does not merely describe himself as God’s representative or messenger; he attributes to himself the same divine works of giving life (v. 21) and exercising final judgment (v. 22). Most emphatically, verse 23 declares that all must “honour the Son just as they honour the Father.” The Greek kathōs (καθώς) establishes a direct comparison: the honour given to the Son corresponds to the honour given to the Father. To dishonour the Son is therefore to dishonour the Father who sent him. The statement that the Son can do nothing “of himself” does not imply that he is a created or inferior deity; rather, it expresses his inseparable relationship with the Father and the unity of their divine operations. The Father and Son are personally distinct, yet the Son shares the Father’s divine authority, life-giving power and honour.

Jesus does not claim to be the Father. He claims equality with the Father in divine works, authority and honour. John 5:23 leaves little room for reducing Christ to merely a prophet, angel or created intermediary: the Son must be honoured just as the Father is honoured. The author of the letter quotes 1 Corinthians 3:8, where Paul says that the one who plants and the one who waters are one. But this comparison cannot override John’s explicit teaching about the Son’s divine prerogatives. The word one must be interpreted in its context. It does not mean precisely the same thing in every passage.

There is another substantial problem with the letter Tuggy wrote’s claim. At His trial, Jesus was asked whether He was the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One. His answer in Mark 14:62 was “I am,” followed by a declaration that they would see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven. Jesus is drawing on two enormously significant Old Testament passages:

  • Psalm 110:1 — the Lord’s enthronement at God’s right hand.

  • Daniel 7:13–14 — the heavenly Son of Man receiving everlasting dominion, glory and a kingdom over all peoples.

The High Priest’s response is immediate. He tears his garments and accuses Jesus of blasphemy (Mark 14:63–64). The author tries to reduce this declaration to an ordinary messianic claim. But Jesus is not merely saying that He is another Davidic king. He is identifying Himself with the exalted heavenly figure of Daniel’s vision and claiming a place at God’s right hand. The distinction between the Father and Son remains, but the authority, glory and dominion attributed to the Son are extraordinary. The claim that Jesus was never accused of claiming divine status is therefore untenable.

“The Father is greater than I” does not disprove the deity of Christ

The letter repeatedly appeals to John 14:28, where Jesus says: “My Father is greater than I.” But it is a serious exegetical mistake to interpret this statement without considering the incarnation. Jesus has voluntarily entered into a state of humiliation.

John 14:28, where Jesus declares, “The Father is greater than I,” must be interpreted within the context of the incarnation and Christ’s earthly mission. Jesus is speaking about his impending departure and return to the Father, not denying his divine identity. The comparison concerns the Son’s humbled, incarnate condition and his subordinate role in the work of redemption, rather than an inferior divine nature. This interpretation is consistent with Philippians 2:6–8, where Christ, although existing in the form of God, takes the form of a servant, and John 17:5, where Jesus speaks of the glory he shared with the Father before the world existed. Importantly, John has already established that the Word was God (John 1:1), and that the Son must receive the same honour as the Father (John 5:23). The Father being greater in relational position or the Son’s incarnate mission does not make the Son less than God in nature. The Father and Son are distinct persons who share the one divine essence.

John 14:28 does not say that Jesus is not God. It describes the relationship between the Father and the incarnate Son. We must interpret this verse alongside John’s explicit declarations of Christ’s deity, rather than allowing one verse to cancel the testimony of the entire Gospel. Philippians 2:6–8 explains that Christ existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to exploit, and took the form of a servant. The movement in this passage is extraordinary. The one who existed in the form of God humbled Himself, took the form of a servant, became obedient, and went to the cross. The text does not describe an ordinary man who eventually earned divine status.

It describes the humiliation of One who already existed in the form of God. Furthermore, Jesus Himself tells us in John 17:5: “Glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” This statement is devastating to the letter’s position. Jesus is not simply claiming that God planned His existence before creation. He speaks of the glory He already possessed in the Father’s presence before the world existed.

John 17:24 reinforces this, “The Father loved the Son before the foundation of the world.” How can an exclusively human Messiah, who did not yet exist, possess glory and participate in a personal relationship with the Father before creation? The answer is found in the eternal pre-existence of the Son. There is also a useful scholarly observation concerning the submission described in 1 Corinthians 15:28. R. B. Jamieson, writing in New Testament Studies, argues that using the Son’s final submission to the Father to disprove His divine identity involves a “category mistake.” He explains that Paul speaks of Christ in two complementary registers: according to His divinity and according to His humanity. The Son’s final submission belongs to His incarnate messianic vocation. This distinction matters enormously. Submission does not automatically mean inferiority of nature. The Son’s obedience to the Father is genuine, but it does not mean that the Son is a created being or that He lacks the divine nature.

The incarnation is not a contradiction

One of the most misleading assertions in the letter Tuggy writes is that Christians believe Jesus was both dead and alive simultaneously. This is a caricature of classical Christology. The Christian understanding is not that Jesus’ divine nature died while His human nature remained alive, or that He was somehow two separate beings. Rather, the eternal Son assumed a complete human nature and became one person who possesses two natures: divine and human. This distinction was carefully articulated in the Definition of Chalcedon in AD 451. It describes Christ as: Perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man. It further states that His two natures are united in one person, without confusion, change, division or separation.

This is not an attempt to manufacture a second person within Jesus. It is precisely the opposite. There is one personal subject: the eternal Son of God. He truly became human. He possessed a human body, human soul, human will and human experience. He suffered, experienced hunger, grew in wisdom and experienced death. Yet He never ceased to be what He eternally was: God. The distinction between person and nature is essential. A nature answers the question of what someone is. A person answers the question of who someone is. And Jesus is not a human person alongside a divine person. He is the divine person of the Son who assumed a complete human nature.

Consequently, Christians can rightly say that God the Son died for humanity. But we do not mean that the divine essence was extinguished, that the Father died, or that the Trinity ceased to exist. We mean that the eternal Son genuinely experienced human death according to the human nature He had assumed. Paul expresses this remarkably in 1 Corinthians 2:8 that “They crucified the Lord of glory.” Notice what Paul calls the one who was crucified. Not merely a man. Not an ordinary human servant.

The Lord of glory. The person who suffered and died was the eternal Son of God. And this is why Romans 8:32 is so important. “God did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all.” The cross is not the story of God watching someone else perform a sacrifice. It is the story of the Father sending His own Son, who willingly gave Himself for us. John 10:17–18 makes this even clearer. Jesus says that nobody takes His life from Him. He lays it down voluntarily and has authority to take it up again. That is hardly the portrait of a powerless human being who merely receives divine authorisation.

The humanity of Jesus does not cancel His deity

The letter repeatedly quotes passages describing Jesus as a man. It references Hebrews 2:14–18, 1 Timothy 2:5, John 8:40 and Acts 2:22. But orthodox Christianity wholeheartedly affirms the humanity of Jesus. We do not believe Jesus merely appeared human. We believe He became genuinely human. John 1:14 declares that the Word became flesh. Hebrews 2:14 says that He shared in flesh and blood, and Hebrews 2:17 explains that He had to be made like His brothers in every respect. Why?

So that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest. This is central to the gospel. Jesus had to be genuinely human to represent humanity. He had to possess a real human body to suffer and die. He had to share our humanity to become our representative and mediator. But the letter commits a serious logical error when it assumes that because Jesus is genuinely human, He therefore cannot be divine. Why should these propositions be mutually exclusive?

The whole point of the incarnation is that the eternal Son became what He was not, without ceasing to be what He eternally was. The author also appeals to Numbers 23:19: “God is not a man.” This is why philosophers should not be exegetes. This passage does not speak of the anatomy of God’s person, it speaks of the surety of His decree! The context is God’s faithfulness and the fact that He does not lie or change His mind like sinful human beings. The passage does not declare that God is incapable of assuming human nature.

In fact, the New Testament explicitly teaches that He did exactly that. Philippians 2:7 says that Christ took the form of a servant and was born in human likeness. Hebrews 2:14–17 explains the necessity of this incarnation. The question is not whether God is naturally human. He is not. The question is whether the eternal Son could assume human nature without ceasing to be God. The New Testament’s answer is unequivocally yes. This is exactly what Job (19:25–27) Prophesied when he said, “Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God in my flesh. I will see Him myself; my eyes will look at Him, and not as a stranger. My heart longs within me.”

Being tempted and experiencing human limitations do not make Jesus a mere human being

The letter raises two familiar objections. First, Jesus was tempted, whereas God cannot be tempted (James 1:13). Second, Jesus did not know the day or hour of His return (Mark 13:32). But these objections again fail to distinguish between Christ’s divine and human natures. Hebrews 4:15 explicitly teaches that Jesus was tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sin. His temptation was real. His humanity was real. His obedience was real. There is no contradiction in affirming that the incarnate Son experienced genuine human testing without His divine nature becoming susceptible to evil.

The point of the temptation narratives is precisely that Jesus, as the obedient Son and faithful representative of humanity, overcame where Adam had failed. Regarding Mark 13:32, we must acknowledge the genuine mystery of the incarnation. The Son accepted the limitations of a truly human existence. The classical doctrine does not require us to claim that His divine nature somehow stopped being omniscient. Rather, it recognises that the one person of Christ possesses both divine and human modes of existence and knowledge.

It is not a contradiction to say that Christ possesses divine knowledge according to His divine nature while experiencing the limitations of human consciousness in His incarnate life. The author repeatedly constructs a caricature of this teaching and then attacks the caricature. The incarnation is a mystery, but mystery is not the same thing as logical contradiction.

Jesus is the eternal Creator, not a product of philosophical imagination

The letter’s treatment of John 1 is among its most problematic sections. It argues that the Logos was simply God’s wisdom or word and that Jesus was only a later human expression of that wisdom. But John does not allow us to reduce his prologue to an impersonal abstraction. Consider the sequence:

John 1:1 — The Word was God.

John 1:2 — He was with God in the beginning.

John 1:3 — All things came into being through Him.

John 1:10 — The world was made through Him.

John 1:14 — The Word became flesh.

The argument is not that Jesus was God’s created assistant. The argument is that the eternal Word through whom creation came into existence became incarnate. James D. G. Dunn, in his scholarly work Christology in the Making (2nd ed., 1989, pg. 241), makes an observation particularly relevant to this letter:

The Logos was (not ‘came to be’) in the beginning.

Dunn goes on to explain that everything that came into existence came through the Logos, before concluding that the Logos actually became flesh. Importantly, Dunn calls this an explicit statement of incarnation. This is significant because the letter attempts to portray incarnation as an invention of later philosophical Christianity. Yet the Johannine text itself explicitly teaches it. The same truth is presented in Colossians 1:15–17. The letter attempts to interpret Jesus as the first created being by appealing to the title “firstborn of all creation.”

But the passage itself explains what this title means. Verse 16 begins with the explanation that all things were created in Him, through Him and for Him. Verse 17 declares that He is before all things and that in Him all things hold together. The word firstborn does not necessarily mean first created. It frequently indicates supremacy and inheritance. Psalm 89:27, for example, describes David as God’s firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. David was not the first human being born. The NET Bible, Colossians 1:15–17 ‘s scholarly notes explain that the term can denote supremacy in rank as well as priority in time, and that the context emphasises Christ’s position over creation.

Hebrews 1:2–3 is equally clear. The Son is the appointed heir of all things, through whom God made the world. He is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful word. This is not the description of a mere human Messiah who began to exist in Mary’s womb. It is the description of the eternal Son who entered human history. Tuggy also overlooks the importance of 1 Corinthians 8:6. Paul writes:

“There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”

This is especially important because Paul is writing within a Jewish monotheistic framework. The language has a profound relationship to the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4. Rather than introducing another god, Paul identifies the Father as the one God and Jesus Christ as the one Lord, assigning to Christ a role in the existence of all things. In his Cambridge-published study of Paul’s Christology, R. B. Jamieson argues that Paul identifies Christ within the unique identity of the God of Israel. He describes 1 Corinthians 8:6 as one of the most striking expressions of this identification. The allegation that the deity of Christ was a late Gentile invention simply cannot be sustained by the evidence of Paul’s earlier writings.

Jesus receives the worship and honour that belong to God

This is another point the letter tries to explain away. It argues that Jesus is worshipped only because God elevated Him to an exalted position. But this explanation does not adequately account for the New Testament’s treatment of worship. Consider the following passages:

Matthew 14:33: After Jesus walks on water and calms the storm, the disciples worship Him and confess Him as the Son of God.

John 9:38: The healed man believes in Jesus and worships Him.

John 20:28: Thomas addresses the resurrected Jesus as “My Lord and my God.”

Hebrews 1:6: God commands His angels to worship the Son.

Revelation 5:11–14: The Lamb receives heavenly worship alongside the One seated on the throne. Every creature in heaven and earth gives Him blessing, honour, glory and power.

The last passage is particularly powerful. Revelation 4 establishes the worship of the Creator seated on the throne. Revelation 5 then presents the Lamb receiving the same heavenly adoration and doxological praise. This is not an inferior creature receiving an isolated gesture of royal respect. The Lamb participates in the worship of the heavenly throne. We must remember that Revelation itself makes an important distinction between worship of God and the worship of creatures.

In Revelation 22:8–9, an angel refuses John’s attempt to worship him and commands him to worship God. Yet throughout Revelation, the Lamb receives worship. How can this be reconciled? The answer is that Jesus is not a creature standing outside the divine identity. He is the eternal Son, worthy of the worship of all creation. My late friend, Dr. Larry Hurtado, one of the most influential scholars of early Christian worship, makes a particularly important historical observation in his article Early Devotion to Jesus: A Report, Reflections and Implications. He writes that devotion to Jesus:

emerged within the first years of the Christian movement and among circles of Jewish believers.

Hurtado further identifies the worship of Jesus alongside God as a remarkable development within ancient Jewish monotheism. This is significant because it challenges the suggestion that the worship of Jesus only emerged after Christianity became predominantly Gentile or that it was invented by later philosophical theologians. The worship of Jesus is deeply rooted in the earliest Christian movement.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not three gods

The letter repeatedly uses the expression “another god” or “second god” as though Trinitarian theology teaches the existence of multiple deities. It does not. This is a fundamental misrepresentation. The doctrine of the Trinity maintains that there is one divine being who eternally exists as three distinct persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Father. Yet each is fully and equally God. The biblical foundations are substantial.

  1. Matthew 28:19: Jesus commands baptism in the singular name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
  2. 2 Corinthians 13:14: Paul places the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit together in the apostolic benediction.
  3. Ephesians 4:4–6: Paul speaks of one Spirit, one Lord and one God and Father of all.

The distinction between the persons does not multiply the divine essence. The letter complains that the Bible does not use the precise expression “God the Son.” But the Bible does not need to use a later theological formula word-for-word for its underlying truth to be biblical. The word Trinity does not appear in Scripture either. Neither does the word incarnation. Yet the biblical realities expressed by these words are unmistakable. The Church developed these terms to protect the meaning of what Scripture actually teaches. The Nicene Creed of AD 325 did not invent another God.

It confessed that the Son is “true God from true God“, “begotten, not made” and of one being with the Father. The issue was not whether Christians should worship a second deity. It was whether the Son who is revealed in Scripture should be understood as eternal and divine or as a created being. The creed’s language was intended to safeguard biblical monotheism and the full deity of Christ.

Acts 2:22 does not establish an exclusively human Christology

The final major argument in the letter appeals to Peter’s Pentecost sermon. Acts 2:22 identifies Jesus as a man attested by God through miracles, wonders and signs. Tuggy presents this as though Peter’s description settles the matter. But this is selective reading. Read the entire sermon! Peter does not stop at verse 22. He continues to proclaim Jesus’ death, resurrection and exaltation.

In Acts 2:24, he declares that God raised Jesus because death could not hold Him.

In Acts 2:25–32, Peter draws on Psalm 16 to explain the resurrection.

In Acts 2:33, he describes Jesus as exalted at God’s right hand.

In Acts 2:34–35, he quotes Psalm 110:1, the great enthronement declaration in which David calls the Messiah his Lord.

And in Acts 2:36, Peter reaches his conclusion:

God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ.

This is a magnificent proclamation of the risen and enthroned Messiah. Peter’s description of Jesus as a man is entirely consistent with the Christian doctrine of the incarnation. He is the God-man, the representative of humanity, the promised Messiah and the risen Lord. Furthermore, the fact that Jesus is exalted does not mean He previously lacked divine existence. It means that the incarnate Son, having completed His work of redemption, is publicly vindicated and enthroned as the victorious Messiah. The resurrection is not Jesus’ promotion from merely human to divine status. It is the vindication and glorification of the One who already was the eternal Son.

  1. John 2:19–21 records Jesus saying that He would raise the temple of His body. John explains that Jesus was speaking about His own body.
  2. John 10:18 records Jesus claiming authority both to lay down His life and to take it up again.
  3. Romans 8:11 also attributes the resurrection of Christ to the Spirit of God.

The Father raises the Son, the Son takes up His life, and the Spirit gives life. There is no need to invent competing gods or competing resurrection accounts. There is one God acting in the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The fundamental problem with this letter

The most serious problem is not that it quotes Scripture. It is that it quotes Scripture selectively while imposing a theological framework that excludes the very conclusions reached by the biblical authors. It acknowledges passages that distinguish Jesus from the Father but struggles to account for passages that identify Jesus with the divine nature and prerogatives of God. It acknowledges the humanity of Jesus but rejects the incarnation. It acknowledges the resurrection but reduces it to the elevation of a merely human Messiah. It acknowledges worship of Jesus but attempts to explain away its significance.

It acknowledges the titles given to Jesus but refuses to consider the Old Testament context in which those titles belong uniquely to the God of Israel. And it acknowledges the Word in John’s Gospel but attempts to separate that Word from the very Christ whom John proclaims. This is not a faithful reading of the whole New Testament. It is a theological reconstruction that begins with the conclusion that Jesus cannot be God and subsequently interprets every passage through that assumption. The real question is not whether Jesus is distinct from the Father. Scripture clearly teaches that He is. The question is whether this distinction excludes Him from the divine identity. The New Testament emphatically says that it does not. Consider the testimony of the Scriptures together:

  • The Word was God (John 1:1).

  • The Word became flesh (John 1:14).

  • All things were created through Him (John 1:3).

  • He existed in the glory of the Father before the world was created (John 17:5).

  • He claimed unity with the Father (John 10:30).

  • He possesses authority to give eternal life (John 10:28).

  • He is to receive the same honour as the Father (John 5:23).

  • Thomas addressed Him as God (John 20:28).

  • The Father addresses the Son as God (Hebrews 1:8).

  • The angels are commanded to worship Him (Hebrews 1:6).

  • He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15).

  • In Him the fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9).

  • He is the Lord of glory who was crucified (1 Corinthians 2:8).

This is not a second god. This is not an ordinary man who received an extraordinary promotion. This is not a philosophical invention. This is the eternal Son who entered our world, assumed our humanity, bore our sins, conquered death and reigns forever.

The Jesus of Scripture has the final word

Rather than manufacture another imaginary letter and place new words in Jesus’ mouth, we should allow His recorded words to answer this reconstruction. Consider His own declarations:

John 8:58

“Before Abraham was, I am.”

John 10:30

“I and the Father are one.”

John 14:9

“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

John 17:5

He possessed glory with the Father before the world existed.

John 5:23

All must honour the Son just as they honour the Father.

John 11:25

“I am the resurrection and the life.”

And finally, consider the opening declaration of John’s Gospel:

John 1:1–3, 14.

The Word was God. Everything was made through Him. And that same Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

This is the Jesus of the apostles. This is the Jesus of the Gospel. This is the Jesus who died for our sins and rose bodily from the grave. This is the Jesus whom the Church has worshipped from its earliest days. The apostolic gospel does not invite us to choose between the humanity and deity of Christ. It demands that we confess both. Any Christology that preserves Jesus as a human Messiah but removes His eternal deity has not simply offered a different explanation of Jesus. It has fundamentally altered the identity of the Saviour whom the New Testament proclaims. The Jesus of Scripture is not merely a man who represents God. He is Emmanuel, God with us. And the appropriate response is not to diminish Him, but to confess with Thomas:

“My Lord and my God!” — John 20:28.

In Closing, I thought to write a prayer in reply to this letter:

 

Dear Lord Jesus (and, if I may, dear Dr. Tuggy, who so carefully transcribed the letter),

I read your epistle with the kind of attention one gives a letter that arrives unexpectedly, written in a familiar hand yet carrying an unfamiliar claim. You speak as one who knows the weight of being misunderstood. You insist that well-meaning Christians have confused You with the Father, turned the cross into a divine suicide, and invented a “triune” God You never taught. You plead: “Stop confusing me with God, our heavenly Father.”

I hear the plea. I feel its force. And still, after long consideration of the Scriptures You yourself inspired through Your apostles, I cannot accept the portrait You paint of Yourself.

You say You are a man, and of course You are. The Gospels never let us forget the tiredness in Your bones, the tears at Lazarus’s tomb, the cry of dereliction, the real death. You are the last Adam, the second Man, the seed of David according to the flesh. No orthodox Christian has ever denied this. The scandal is not that You are human; the scandal is that the eternal Word became flesh and dwelt among us without ceasing to be what He eternally was.

You remind us that the Father is “the only true God” (John 17:3). Amen. The New Testament never blushes to call the Father God in the absolute sense. Yet the same writings place You beside Him in ways that shatter simple unitarian arithmetic. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The same John who records Your prayer also records Thomas’s confession after the resurrection: “My Lord and my God!”—and You receive it without rebuke. Paul can write of “our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” and of the one who is “over all, God blessed forever.” These are not slips of the pen.

You protest that an immortal God cannot die. True. Yet the mystery the apostles proclaimed is not that the divine nature suffered death, but that the Person who is eternally Son took our nature to Himself and, in that nature, tasted death for everyone. The cross is not God ceasing to be God; it is God the Son, in the weakness of our flesh, offering the one perfect sacrifice. The Father did not die. The Spirit did not die. You died—truly, fully, humanly—and the Father raised You by the Spirit. The distinction of persons is precisely what makes the gospel coherent rather than contradictory.

You say You have a God, and therefore cannot be God. Yet the eternal Son, having become man, lives as man in perfect filial dependence. That dependence is not the negation of deity; it is the revelation of the inner life of God. The Father is the fountain; the Son receives and returns all things; the Spirit glorifies both. This is not later philosophical invention. It is the shape of the story from Bethlehem to the right hand of the Majesty on high.

You warn against “speculations” about three Persons. Fair enough. We did not invent the language; we inherited it because the data of Scripture refused to fit simpler molds. One God. Three distinct subjects who speak, love, send, and are sent. The Father loves the Son. The Son prays to the Father. The Spirit is another Advocate. Baptism is into the one Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. These are not the products of fourth-century committees; they are the raw material the committees were forced to organize.

You close by urging us to honor You without confusing You with the Father. Gladly. We worship the Father through the Son in the Spirit. We do not pray to a solitary Monad who merely uses a human instrument. We pray to the God who is eternally Father, Son, and Spirit—the God whose very being is self-giving love, and who therefore did not need the world in order to love, yet loved the world enough to give His only Son.

Dr. Tuggy’s letter is clever, earnest, and, in its way, pastoral. It wants to rescue Jesus from later creeds. I fear it rescues Him into a lesser glory than the one the apostles beheld. The Jesus who walks out of the pages of the New Testament is not merely the greatest of the prophets or the most obedient of the sons of Adam. He is the One in whom the fullness of deity dwells bodily, the exact imprint of the Father’s nature, the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world and who now shares the throne of God.

So I remain, with deep respect for the clarity of the challenge and deeper loyalty to the witness of Scripture,

Your servant still learning how to confess both Your true humanity and Your true deity,

Rudolph P. Boshoff