Modalism (1 God = 3 Modes)
At Jesus' baptism, he stands in the water while the Spirit descends and a voice speaks from heaven. How should readers understand the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in scenes like this?
This article expands the development overview by explaining modalism, examining its historical reception, and testing its central claim against Scripture.
Defining Modalism
Modalism holds that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three distinct personal subjects but different ways in which one divine personal subject is known or acts. It is sometimes associated with the names Sabellius and Praxeas. The word describes a one-person account of the three terms, not simply belief in one God.
Relevancy Today
The United Pentecostal Church International (UPCI) is a present-day example of an Oneness Pentecostal body. Its statement of belief describes one God revealed as Father, in his Son Jesus Christ, and as the Holy Spirit, and calls Jesus God manifested in flesh.
Oneness believers commonly identify the Father with the one God and regard the Holy Spirit as that God's Spirit. They identify Jesus as the one God's manifestation in flesh. On this account, “Son” refers especially to the real human life and birth of Jesus, while “Father” speaks of the divine identity. They therefore explain Jesus' prayers as the genuine humanity of Jesus addressing God, not necessarily as one actor pretending to pray. The UPCI belief statement explicitly calls Jesus both God and man.
Modalism Challenges
- Matthew 3:16-17 describe a voice from heaven while the Son is baptised.
- There are many examples of interaction between Jesus and the Father. For example the Father send Jesus and Jesus prays the Father.
- The Father and Jesus are considered two witnesses.
These facts make no sense if they are the same personal subject.
Historical Rejection
Early Christian Writers
Around the early third century, Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapters 1-2 and 9, opposed a teaching he associated with Praxeas that collapsed the Father and Son into one personal identity. He argued instead that the Father and Son must be distinguished. Hippolytus, Against the Heresy of One Noetus, chapters 1-3, similarly reported that Noetus identified the Father with the Son and opposed that identification.
Creeds and Later Reception
The Nicene Creed in Catholic use names the one God as Father, distinguishes Jesus Christ as his Son, and speaks of the Holy Spirit. Its language distinguishes Father and Son. The later Athanasian Creed is more direct: it says “neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance” and distinguishes the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Catholic Catechism, paragraphs 253-255, teaches that the divine persons are really distinct. The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 2.3, received by confessional Presbyterian Protestants, likewise distinguishes three persons in the one Godhead.
Biblical Evidence
Although Deuteronomy 6:4 and Isaiah 44:6 affirm the one God, neither says that the Father and his appointed Son are one personal subject.
The older prophetic pattern distinguishes God and His servant. In Isaiah 42:1, God says, “I have put my Spirit upon him” (ESV). Matthew 12:17-21 applies that servant passage to Jesus. In the same pattern, Isaiah 61:1 describes the speaker as anointed by the Spirit and sent by the Lord GOD; Jesus applies this passage to his mission in Luke 4:17-21. The New Testament application confirms the messianic reading rather than making the prophetic speaker identical with the sender.
Jesus then appeals to a legal distinction: “the testimony of two people is true”, naming himself and “the Father who sent me” (John 8:17-18, ESV). Jesus addresses the Father as “the only true God” and himself as “Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3, ESV). His appeal to two witnesses bears more weight against a one-subject reading than the baptism scene alone.
Jesus' prayer “not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39, ESV) likewise presents a real relationship, not merely three visual signs. The same Father-Son relations are surveyed in Jesus Interacted With God.
The apostolic distinction is similarly direct: “there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5, ESV). A mediator is distinguished from the God to whom he mediates. Neither argument requires treating God's Spirit as another god.
Comparison Table
These passages compare Father with Jesus, the Son:
| Scripture | The Father | Jesus, the Son |
|---|---|---|
| Genesis 17:1; Matthew 28:18; John 17:2 | Identifies himself as “God Almighty”. | Receives authority over heaven and earth; Father grants him authority over all flesh. |
| Numbers 23:19; John 4:24; Romans 5:15-17; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 | “God is not man”. God is spirit. | Called a man through whom grace and resurrection come. |
| Psalm 102:27; Romans 1:23; Romans 6:9; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; 1 Timothy 1:17 | Years have no end; God is called immortal. | Christ died and was raised; risen Christ “will never die again”. |
| Psalm 110:1; 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 | Receives kingdom from Son; explicitly excepted from everything subjected to Son. | Sits at Father's right hand; Son is subjected to Father at final kingdom handover. |
| Psalm 139:7-10; John 11:14-15; John 16:28; John 17:11-13 | Father's Spirit and presence reach every place described by the psalmist. | Absent when Lazarus died; later announces departure from world to Father. |
| Psalm 139:13-14; Matthew 1:18; Galatians 4:4 | Forms the psalmist's inward parts in his mother's womb. | Conceived through Holy Spirit's activity in Mary, then born of woman. |
| Isaiah 40:13-14; John 7:16; John 8:28; John 14:24; Romans 11:34 | Needs no counsellor or teacher; Isaiah's question concerns “the Spirit of the LORD”. | Says his teaching and words belong to Father; speaks “as the Father taught me”. |
| Isaiah 42:1; Matthew 12:17-21 | Upholds His chosen servant and puts His Spirit upon him. | Jesus identified as Father's chosen servant, upon whom Father puts his Spirit. |
| Matthew 3:16-17 | Speaks from heaven while Jesus is at the water: “This is my beloved Son”. | Comes up from water while Father identifies him as his Son. |
| Matthew 4:1-10; Mark 1:12-13; James 1:13 | “God cannot be tempted with evil”. | Led by Spirit into wilderness, where devil tempts him. |
| Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32 | Only Father knows the specified day and hour. | Explicitly does not know that day or hour in these statements. |
| Matthew 26:39 | Addressed in prayer; his will is distinguished from Jesus' expressed will. | Prays “not as I will, but as you will”, submitting his will to Father's. |
| Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34; John 20:17 | Risen Jesus still calls him his Father and his God. | On cross addresses “My God, my God”; after rising, “my God and your God”. |
| John 5:19; John 14:10 | Father dwelling in Jesus does his works; Son sees Father acting. | “can do nothing of his own accord”, but does what he sees Father doing. |
| John 5:26 | Has life in himself and grants Son life in himself. | Has life in himself, explicitly granted by Father. |
| John 8:17-18 | Father who sent Jesus bears witness about him, alongside Jesus' own testimony. | Invokes “two people”; names himself and Father as the two witnesses. |
| John 14:16-17 | Gives the Helper in response to Jesus' request. | “I will ask the Father”; distinguishes himself from the one he petitions. |
| John 15:1-9 | “my Father is the vinedresser” within Jesus' vine metaphor. | “I am the true vine”; Father and Son have distinct roles in the metaphor. |
| John 15:26 | The one from whom the Helper proceeds and is sent. | Sends the Helper to believers from the Father. |
| John 17:1-26 | Jesus addresses him as “the only true God”, who sent Jesus Christ. | Prays to Father as the sent Christ, receiving authority and glory from him. |
| Acts 2:32-33 | Raises Jesus and provides the promised Holy Spirit to the exalted Son. | Raised and exalted at Father's right hand; receives promised Holy Spirit and pours it out. |
| Acts 10:38 | God anoints Jesus. | Jesus of Nazareth, anointed by God with Holy Spirit and power. |
| Ephesians 4:4-6 | One God and Father of all, distinguished from the one Lord. | One Lord, listed distinct from the one God and Father. |
| 1 Timothy 2:5 | The one God, to whom Jesus relates as mediator between God and people. | “the man Christ Jesus”, mediator between God and people. |
Attribute differences, humanity, received authority and metaphors alone do not exclude every modalist reading; modalism need not portray prayer as pretence. The relational passages instead support rejecting Father and Son as modes of one subject: concurrent sender–recipient and speaker–addressee relationships, two witnesses, and a continuing Father–Son relationship after resurrection.
Conclusion
The historical witnesses rejected the confusion of Father and Son, but Scripture supplies the decisive test. The biblical relationships and comparison show the Father and his human Son as genuinely distinct while God's Spirit acts among them. Modalism's one-person claim is unbiblical and disproved by these distinctions.