Ideas which at one time seemed self-evident or divinely authorized have sometimes come in a different age to seem implausible or even offensive.  To give just one major example which is relevant to the argument of this book, it was for more than a thousand years a firm Christian dogma that Extra ecclesiam nulla salus, ‘Outside the church there is no salvation.’  Thus for example the Council of Florence (1438-45) declared that ‘No one remaining outside the Catholic Church, not just pagans, but also Jews or heretics or schematics,can become partakers of eternal life; but they will go into the “everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels,”unless before the end of life they are joined to the Church’ (Clarkson 1961, 78: Denzinger, 714).  But very few Catholics would dream of affirming this today, and most who are asked about it only find it embarrassing.

Here then is a rather fundamental belief, with vast implications, that held sway throughout most of Christian history up to the present time, but which has now simply been discarded.  [Has it really?] It cannot, therefore, reasonably be supposed that theological doctrines are unchangeable. The body of doctrine has in fact been developing, sometimes more slowly and sometimes more rapidly, throughout Christian history. Proposals for continued change today should accordingly be considered on their merits.  It would be inconsistent, after what has happened to the extra ecclesiam dogma, to reject them because they involve change, even radical change.[1]

The incarnation respecting Jesus of Nazareth was certainly in the mind of God for he intended it to happen (whatever it is that did happen or however we might define the incarnation).  But, the physical incarnation of a being who took over the body of Jesus, or entered Jesus as a possessing supernatural being, is a myth created, I believe, by the Roman church in order to justify the establishment of Jesus as a God in a trinitarian anti-Jewish mode.   It is immaterial to this conclusion whether or not some people might have begun to worship Jesus as deity before the Roman church created it as a “fact.”  What someone might have done is no proof that it should have been done.  Various popular figures today are worshiped as deity but this does not make them such deity.

The first step into the quagmire of trinitarianism: Perhaps what the primitive-Roman church did was simply play “follow the leader.”  Rather then dream up the incarnation of a preexistent Christ, they saw that some people already accepted Jesus as Deity, so all they needed was the God-man scheme.  If some Christians had not already believed in the deity of Christ and if some had not already been teaching his eternal state, Arius (256-336 AD), the trigger for ecumenical church action at Nicea 325 AD, would have had no reason to teach that the son of God was not eternal and that Jesus was indeed subordinate to the Father.

Seizing the moment, opportunistic Roman bishops exploited Arius’ teachings to dogmatically establish the deity of Jesus as a fact and in due time, elevate themselves in great power as Christ’s successors and Peter as the first “pope.”  All they needed to get things rolling was to work out the methodology of Jesus being a God-man at the same time the Father was a God.  And this first step to trinitarianism was finally accomplished at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.  (It was here that the Roman church declared Arius to be a heretic and then burned his writings.) So, these Roman bishops, with the help of Emperor Constantine, produced a doctrine that became “Christian” dogma, which dogma insisted that Jesus came down from heaven to become man (notice: not a man).  Thus was the dawn of the Great (Roman) Mystery Religion(Rev.17:1-6).  To me, this is the most likely historic development, since it is a fact that some believers were already worshiping Christ as a God or demigod at some level after the Hellenistic fashion.

Although the Roman Church created the Trinity doctrine and destroyed persons who disagreed with it and them, creating the doctrine of trinitarianism was a natural outgrowth of the supernatural and mystical tendencies of Hellenistic believers in the early years after Christ.  The church, in its attempt to harmonize isolated texts (that seemed to support preexistence) with the strict monotheism of the Bible, was ultimately led to devise a real or substantive incarnational scheme, as opposed to a metaphorical incarnation (which is much closer to reality).  They might have entertained the notion of a metaphorical incarnation but if they did, it was rejected.  Nevertheless, Christianity now has the incoherent three-in-one-formula.  Later, using the same preexistence-of-Jesus model, Herbert W. Armstrong saw the opportunity to create his mystical two-in-one-plus-you-can-become-a-God Worldwide Church of God doctrine.

It has been written that “Jacob wrestled with God” and survived.  The NIV Study Bible has a caption above Gen.32:22 stating: Jacob Wrestles With God.  Jacob sent his wives (2), his two maidservants, and his eleven sons across the ford of Jabbok.  “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.  When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.  Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak’ ” (Gen.32:24-26, NIV).  But Jacob would not let him go without a blessing from the man.  (Jacob was stronger than him.)  It came in the form of a new name,Israel, and it means, “He struggled with God.”

“Then the man said, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome’ ” (V.28).  Jacob then asked the man his name but the man would not give it. Later, Jacob gave the place where all this happened, a name: “Peniel,” which means, face of God. 

“So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared’ " (v.30).  Verse 30 is out of step with the context.

Did God come down to earth and wrestle with Jacob?    I suppose God could have made himself “incarnate,” or enfleshed and I suppose that if God came down and appeared as a man, Jacob would have struggled with God and with a man, but