On "the only true God"

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Who is the "True God"?
John 4:24 tells us we must worship God in truth (aletheia in the Greek text). There can be no doubt what "truth" means here. It can be properly contrasted here with "falsity." If we are not worshiping God correctly (in truth), then we are worshiping him falsely. There are only two choices here. This is confirmed by John 17:3 and 2 Thess. 1:8, 9 where we are told that it means eternal life to us to know the true God and Jesus Christ, and, conversely, it means eternal destruction to not know God and obey Jesus. Obviously, if we "know" God and Christ falsely, we cannot worship them in truth. We must know them accurately!


But what about the word "true" [alethinos (contrasted with aletheia, 'truth')] in NT Greek? If something is true, does that mean all other things in that same category are necessarily false? Some trinitarians insist that this is so when the term "the true God" is used in Scripture. In other words they are insisting that if he is the true God, anyone else called 'a god' would necessarily be a false god! (And, therefore, Jesus cannot be called "a god" in scripture as JWs have translated.)


Well, alethinos "is unquestionably used sometimes in the Gospel and First Epistle [of John] to signify that a thing truly corresponds to the idea of the name given to it" - p. 819, Vol. 4, A Dictionary of the Bible, Hastings, Hendrickson Publishers, 1988 printing.

And respected NT Greek expert W. E. Vine tells us that alethinos

"denotes true in the sense of real, ideal, genuine; it is used (a) of God, John 7:28 ...; 17:3; I Thess. 1:9;...." - p. 1170, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Nelson Publ., 1983 printing.

Therefore, if we should see, for example, someone being called the 'true prophet,' that should mean that the person so described is truly a prophet. In either case this certainly does not have to mean that all other prophets must be false! Even if it was said that this one was the "only true Prophet," we would probably consider him the only prophet in the highest sense of the word, but that still would not make all other prophets of God false prophets!

Or, since the Proverb quoted at 2 Peter 2:22 is "the true (alethous) Proverb," does that really mean that all other Proverbs must be false?

And at Heb. 8:2 we see Jesus as "a minister in the sanctuary [in heaven], and in the true (alethinos - Young's; Vine) tabernacle" - NASB. Here again, although the heavenly "tabernacle" is the "true tabernacle," that does not mean that the earthly tabernacle was a false tabernacle. As W. E. Vine puts it when discussing Heb. 8:2,

"not that the wilderness Tabernacle was false, but that it was a weak and earthly copy of the Heavenly [cf. Heb. 9:24]." - p. 1171, An Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984.

Therefore, the heavenly tabernacle was the only true Tabernacle. There could be other, earthly, tabernacles which were still not false tabernacles. Or as Heb. 9:24 puts it:

"For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands [the earthly tabernacle], a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself" - NASB.

No, just because the heavenly tabernacle is the true one, does not make holy tabernacles on earth false tabernacles. They were merely tabernacles in a lesser sense of the word - "in the image of" the only true Tabernacle (in heaven)!

“Christ proclaims Himself [‘the bread the true’ - 'the true bread'] (John vi. 32), not suggesting thereby that the bread which Moses gave was not also ‘bread of heaven’ (Ps. cv. 40), but only that it was such in a secondary inferior degree; it was not food in the highest sense, inasmuch as it did not nourish up unto eternal life those that ate it (John vi. 49). He is [‘the vine the true’ - 'the true vine'] (John xv. I), not thereby denying that Israel also was God's vine (Ps. lxxx. 8; Jer. 21), but affirming that none except Himself realized this name, and all which this name implied, to the full (Hos. x. I; Deut. xxxii. 32)” - p. 29, Trench’s Synonyms of the New Testament. [Thanks to 'Reality.']



Perhaps the best illustration of this would be the use of the term "Christ" (or 'Messiah' in Hebrew) ["christos, christou, christw, and christon in the original Greek]. As far as Christians are concerned there is only one "true Christ," our Savior, Jesus! We know that the Bible has also warned us about "false christs."

However, less well-known is the fact that God himself appointed King Saul (1 Sam. 24:7, christos) and King David (2 Sam. 23:1, christon), among many others, as His christ. "Christ" (or "Messiah" in Hebrew) simply means "anointed" or "anointed one," and those who properly bear that title are those who have been chosen by God for a special assignment. This included the high priests, prophets, and righteous kings of Israel. They all had the title "Christ" or "Christ of God" in the ancient Greek of the Septuagint Bible. Why, even the foreign king, Cyrus, was called the christ (christw) of God (Is. 45:1, Septuagint) because God chose him for a special assignment!

So, even though we would say that Jesus is the only true Christ and that there have been many false Christs who have arisen, it still would not be proper to insist that any person other than Jesus who is called "christ" or "a christ" must be a false christ! We would then be saying that King David, Moses, and innumerable others chosen by God to do his will were false christs!

What we are saying, then, is that Jesus is the only true Christ in that he is the only person who is God's anointed in the highest sense of the word! And all others called "christ" are either false christs or faithful servants of God in a lesser sense of the word (as compared to Jesus himself)!

So, for God to say that he is the true (alethinos) God does not demand that all others called 'god' or 'gods' are false gods as a few trinitarian apologists imply. The inspired scriptures when speaking of faithful angels, prophets, God-appointed judges, kings, and magistrates clearly calls them "gods" on occasion (see the BOWGOD and DEF studies). These are called "gods" in the sense of faithful servants of God, representing the true God.[1]

Of course "God" [theos] (the "Most High God" - Luke 8:28; Ps. 82:6; Luke 6:35[2] - and the "God of gods" - Deut. 10:17; Ps. 136:2) was distinguished from "a god" [theos] by the use of the definite article ("the") in the original languages - see the DEF and THEOS studies. (Also remember that capital letters were not used to distinguish things in the original manuscripts of the Bible as they are in modern English Bibles: God, Christ, etc.)

But let's examine the scriptural uses of the "true God" more closely.

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible shows only 5 places where this is used in the entire Bible: (1) 2 Chron. 15:3; (2) Jer. 10:10; (3) 1 Thess. 1:9; (4) 1 John 5:20; and (5) John 17:3. Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jehovah the God of the Bible is one person only (as his singular, masculine, personal name, "Jehovah" clearly shows): the Father in heaven. So does the term "the only true God" ever refer to the Son or the Holy Spirit or a 'multiple-person' God? Or do the JW's teach the truth about the knowledge of God that means our very eternal lives (Jn 17:3; 2 Thess. 1:8, 9)?

Here, then are all the uses of "the true God" to be found in the entire Holy Scriptures (according to Strong's; Young's; and the New American Standard Concordances):

(1) ---2 Chron. 15:3, 4 says:
"Now for a long season Israel was without the true (alethinos - Sept.) God, and without a teaching priest, and without law: but when in their distress they turned unto Jehovah, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found of them." - American Standard Version (ASV).

(2) ---Jeremiah 10:10 says:
"But Jehovah is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting king..." - ASV. (This passage is not in the Septuagint.)

These two scriptures (the only two in the OT to use 'the true God' according to Young's; the New American Standard; and Strong's concordances) clearly identify the true God as Jehovah. And the only person to be identified as Jehovah in the entire OT is the Father alone! (Is. 63:16; 64:8, ASV; Deut. 32:6, ASV; Ps. 2:7 and 89:26, 27 {compare Heb. 1:5}.)

And, in fact, it is also clearly shown that the Messiah is not Jehovah! (Psalm 110:1, ASV {compare Acts 2:33-36 and Eph. 1:17, 20}; Micah 5:4, ASV; Psalm 2:1, 2, ASV {compare Acts 4:25-27}; Psalm 2:7, ASV {compare Acts 13:33; Heb. 5:5}; Is. 53:6, 10, ASV {most Christian churches recognize that all of Is. 53 refers to the Messiah}.)

But what about the New Testament? Is "the true [real] God" ever clearly identified here (in contradiction to the OT) as the Son? As the Holy Spirit? As a "multiple-person" God?

(3) ---1 Thess. 1:9, 10 -
"They tell how you [the Thessalonian congregation] turned to God from idols to serve the living and true [alethinos] God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead - Jesus..." - NIV.

Well, here again the true God is clearly the Father alone as context demands (and who has been identified as Jehovah alone above). And the Son, Jesus, is clearly differentiated from that 'true God"!

So what about the only two remaining references in the NT: 1 John 5:20 and John 17:3?

The only hope for the trinitarian argument that the "true God is Jesus" is found at 1 John 5:20.

(4) ---1 Jn 5:20 -
"We are in him that is true [alethinos], even in his Son, Jesus Christ. This [outos] is the true [alethinos] God, and eternal life." - KJV.

Some trinitarians actually insist that the word "this" (outos) here refers to Jesus. In other words, "[Jesus Christ] is the true God and eternal life." For example, Robert M. Bowman in his Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus Christ, and the Gospel of John states that at 1 Jn 5:20 Jesus is called 'the true God and eternal life' "indisputably identifying Christ as the Almighty God of the Old Testament." - p. 41, Baker Book House, 1991 printing. I understand why some trinitarians are so desperate in their search for non-existent scriptural "evidence" that they have to make it up, but this is incredibly poor!

It is obvious that grammatically the word "this" (outos) could be referring to either the Father or Jesus in this particular scripture (see the footnote for 1 John 5:20 in the very trinitarian NIV Study Bible). But the fact that the true God (or "the true One") has just been identified as the Father of Jesus (1 Jn 5:20, TEV and GNB; and the footnote in the NIV Study Bible[3]) makes it highly probable that "this is the true God" refers to the Father, not Jesus. The highly trinitarian NT scholar Murray J. Harris sums up his 13-page analysis of this scripture as follows:

"Although it is certainly possible that outos refers back to Jesus Christ, several converging lines of evidence point to 'the true one,' God the Father, as the probable antecedent. This position, outos = God [Father], is held by many commentators, authors of general studies, and significantly, by those grammarians who express an opinion on the matter."[4] - p. 253, Jesus as God, Baker Book House, 1992.

Notice how this trinitarian scholar actually admits that the probability is that the Father (not Jesus) is being called the true God here. He even tells us (and cites examples in his footnotes) that New Testament grammarians and commentators (most of them trinitarian, of course) agree!

So this single "proof" that the "true God" is a title for anyone other than the Father alone is not proof at all. The grammar alone merely makes it a possibility. The immediate context makes it highly improbable since (as in all other uses of the term) the true God (or the true one) was just identified as the Father ("We are in the one who is true as we are in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and this is eternal life." - NJB; and "We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we know the true God. We live in union with the true God - in union with his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and this is eternal life." - TEV. "And we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and he is eternal life." - New Living Translation).

So the immediate context alone makes it probable that the true God is the Father in this scripture also. As we have seen, if we include the context of all the uses of the 'true God,' it is certain that He is the Father alone (whose personal name is Jehovah - Ps. 83:18, Ex. 3:15).

To clinch John's intended meaning at 1 John 5:20, let's look at his only other use of the term: John 17:1, 3, where, again (as in 1 Jn 5:20), he mentions Father, Son, and eternal life.

(5) ---At John 17:1, 3 Jesus prays to the Father:

"Father, .... this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." - New International Version (NIV).

Here the Father alone is not only very clearly identified as the only true [alethinos] God, but Jesus Christ is again pointedly and specifically excluded from that identification ("AND Jesus Christ whom you [the only true God] have sent")!

Notice how this popular trinitarian Bible has rendered John 17:1, 3 - "Father,....This is eternal life: to know thee who alone art truly God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." - New English Bible (NEB).

So, the title "the true God" does not have to mean that there are no others who may be called "gods" or "a god" in a subordinate but righteous sense. It is, however, an exclusive title for God, the Most High, only true God, Jehovah. And clearly it refers exclusively to the Father! No one else is the God or the True God! (Compare Ps. 86:10; 2 Kings 19:19; Is. 37:16.)

Therefore, the argument by certain trinitarian "guides" that the term 'true God' must mean that all others called 'gods' in the Scriptures are false gods is clearly false itself. Those who use it have not examined it with anything that could be called proper scholarship. They are either terribly misinformed (the fault of their spiritual "guides") or, in the case of the trinitarian authors, lecturers, and ministers who are aware of methods of proper research, Bible language grammar, etc., terribly dishonest ("deliberately-blind guides")! How does this fit with the command that we must worship God in truth (aletheia)- Jn 4:24? Or the warning that when the knowingly blind (false religious leaders) lead the blind (the ones following those leaders with blind faith) both will fall into the pit? Shouldn't we ALL carefully and diligently examine all sides of any essential, life-saving Bible teaching?