Nuggets from An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith by Dave Hunt - Is "Godhead" a Biblical Term? | thebereancall.org

Dave Hunt

Nuggets from “An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith” by Dave Hunt – Is “Godhead” a Biblical Term?

Jesus said, “The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand” (John:3:35). God’s love is not just toward mankind but first of all among the three Persons of the Godhead. And three Persons they must be. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can’t be mere offices, titles, or modes in which God manifests Himself, for such cannot love, consult, and fellowship together. Not only is the Son presented as a Person, but so are the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Bible presents each as having His own personality: each wills, acts, loves, cares, can be grieved or become angry. “Offices” or “titles” don’t do that. Unitarianism isn’t biblical – and it robs the Godhead of the necessary qualities of true Deity.

Godhead? Is that a biblical term? Yes, indeed. It occurs three times in the King James New Testament in Acts:17:29, Romans:1:20, and Colossians:2:9. In contrast to theos, which is used consistently throughout the New Testament for “God,” three different but related Greek words occur in these verses (theos, theiotes, theotes), which the King James translators carefully designated as the special word, Godhead. That very term indicates a plurality of being. Paul wrote: “In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians:2:9). Did he simply mean that in Christ dwelt all the fullness of Himself? That would be like saying that in me dwells all the fullness of me. Does he simply mean that in Christ dwells all the fullness of Deity (as non-KJV) translators render it)? That, too, would be redundant – or it would detract from the Deity of Christ. For if Christ is intrinsically God, then what is the point of saying that “in Him dwells all the fullness of Deity”? But if Christ is the Son and there are two other persons in the Godhead, then it does mean something. It means that just as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God, so when the Son became man He brought that fullness of the Godhead with Him into the flesh.