There’s a recurring concern: does my work on the divinity of Jesus—particularly as framed through Heavenly Flesh Christology and a return to Hebraic categories—drift into Sabellianism?
Let me be clear: I am not a Sabellian, nor do I collapse the distinctions within the Godhead into temporal modes or masks. What I am attempting to articulate is something quite different—something I believe is both more faithful to Scripture and truer to the Hebraic roots of our faith than the standard metaphysical language of post-Nicene theology allows.
Let me explain why.
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What Sabellianism Gets Wrong
Sabellianism (or modalistic monarchianism) was an early theological error that denied real distinctions between Father, Son, and Spirit. It claimed that these were not distinct persons, but roles or modes God assumes in different eras. The same singular divine person appears first as Father, then as Son, then as Spirit. There is no eternal communion. No relational dynamism. Just shifting masks.
I reject that entirely.
In contrast, I affirm what Scripture teaches—that the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and yet the fullness of the God of Israel is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). I believe the Son is eternally begotten—not created, not a mode, but the visible Word, the Sar haPanim (Prince of the Presence), known from the beginning.
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Why Heavenly Flesh Christology Isn’t Modalism
My Christology rests on a recovery of the early Jewish teaching that the Messiah’s flesh is not a late assumption, but a preexistent, heavenly reality. As strange as this sounds to modern ears, it finds support in several ancient sources:
2 Enoch 22:1–10 describes the transformation of Enoch into a glorious man, possibly reflecting early Jewish speculation about a heavenly human.Philo of Alexandria speaks of the Logos as the “firstborn Son” and the “image of God” (De Confusione Linguarum 14; De Somniis 1.239).In Targum Neofiti and other Aramaic paraphrases, we find the Memra (Word) of the Lord acting independently from God while fully sharing His identity (cf. Targum Neof. on Genesis 3:8).And in Daniel 7, the one like a son of man comes on the clouds—not from below, but from above—receiving authority from the Ancient of Days.
All of this feeds into my conviction: the Son did not become divine. He is divine. He did not assume flesh as a new condition. He is the eternal, glorified Heavenly Man—revealed in time, not manufactured in it.
As Paul says, “the second man is from heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:47). Not from Nazareth. Not from Mary. From heaven. That doesn’t deny the incarnation—it radically affirms it, but on Hebraic rather than Hellenistic terms.
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Rejecting Greek Metaphysics Without Losing the Trinity
I have voiced critiques of Greek metaphysical language—terms like ousia, hypostasis, and prosopon. But I want to be clear: I don’t reject the reality those terms tried to name. I question their usefulness and faithfulness to the biblical drama.
I have voiced critiques of Greek metaphysical language—terms like ousia, hypostasis, and prosopon. But I want to be clear: I don’t reject the reality those terms tried to name. I question their usefulness and faithfulness to the biblical drama.
The Hebrew Bible doesn’t speak in terms of essence and substance. It speaks in terms of Name, Presence, and Voice. The God of Israel is not an abstraction but One who covenants, commands, and reveals. When the biblical authors speak of God, they speak of actions in history, not essences in eternity.
The Angel of YHWH, the Name that is “in Him” (Exodus 23:21), the Glory that fills the Temple, the Davar (Word) that comes to prophets—these are real distinctions, not modes or metaphors. And Jesus fits squarely within this tradition. He is not a temporary manifestation of the Father. He is the eternal Face of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3).
So no—I’m not denying Trinitarian reality. I’m calling for better metaphors, rooted in Scripture, not Greek categories.
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The Oracular Chain of Witnesses (Eda), Not Philosophical Formulas
One of the deepest shifts I’m asking readers to make is to return to the Eda—the covenantal chain of witnesses—through whom God has revealed Himself. The Trinity, for me, is not an abstract formula to be defined in councils. It is a lived revelation, disclosed through Israel’s story and culminated in Messiah.
One of the deepest shifts I’m asking readers to make is to return to the Eda—the covenantal chain of witnesses—through whom God has revealed Himself. The Trinity, for me, is not an abstract formula to be defined in councils. It is a lived revelation, disclosed through Israel’s story and culminated in Messiah.
The Father sends the Son. The Son mediates the Spirit. The Spirit indwells the people of God. This is not modalism—it’s covenantal sequence, not confusion of persons.
Isaiah 63:9–10 is crucial here:
“In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them… But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit…”
The Angel. The Father. The Spirit. All active. All distinct. All bound together in one divine drama.
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Conclusion: The Face of God, Not the Mask
My work is not Sabellianism. It is a reassertion that the God of Israel has a Face—not a mask.
My work is not Sabellianism. It is a reassertion that the God of Israel has a Face—not a mask.
Jesus is not the Father in disguise. He is the Image—eternally begotten, not made—through whom all things were created and in whom all things hold together (Colossians 1:15–17).
To use Jewish terms, He is the Adam Kadmon—the primordial human, the One in whose Image we are created. To use mystical language, He is the visible Tzelem Elohim. To use covenantal terms, He is the Ger Toshav made flesh, that all the nations might come under His wings.
I affirm the unity of God, the full divinity of the Son, and the real distinction between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. But I refuse to describe these things with categories foreign to the story of Israel.
And that’s not Sabellianism. That’s covenantal Trinitarianism.
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Select Sources & References
Targum Neofiti on Genesis and Exodus (esp. Memra theology
Philo of Alexandria, De Confusione Linguarum 14, De Somniis 1.23
Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ(New Press, 2012
Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven (Brill, 1977)
Crispin Fletcher-Louis, Jesus Monotheism Volume 1 (Wipf & Stock, 2015
2 Enoch 22:1–10 (Slavonic)
N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress Press, 2003), esp. on the Daniel 7 figure
Isaiah 63:9–10; Exodus 23:20–23; Colossians 1:15–17; Hebrews 1:3
Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the God of Israel (Eerdmans, 2008)
