Does the Word elohim (God) Imply That There Is More than One Person in the Godhead?

"The fanciful idea that Elohim referred to the Trinity of persons in the Godhead hardly finds now a supporter among scholars. It is either what the grammarians call the plural of majesty, or it denotes the fullness of divine strength, the sum of the powers displayed by God" (William Smith, A Dictionary of the Bible, ed. Peloubet, MacDonald Pub. Co., 1948, p. 220).
"Elohim must rather be explained as an intensive plural, denoting greatness and majesty" (The American Journal of Semitic Language and Literature, 1905, Vol. XXI, p. 208).
"Early dogmaticians were of the opinion that so essential a doctrine as that of the Trinity could not have been unknown to the men of the Old Testament…No modern theologian...can longer maintain such a view. Only an inaccurate exegesis which overlooks the more immediate grounds of interpretation can see references to the Trinity in the plural form of the divine name Elohim, the use of the plural in Genesis 1:26 or such liturgical phrases as three members of the Aaronic blessing of Numbers 6:24-26 and the Trisagion of Isaiah 6:3" (The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. 12, p. 18).
"The plural form of the name of God, elohim, in the Hebrew Scriptures has often been adduced as proof of the plurality of persons in the Godhead…Such use of Scripture will not be likely to advance the interests of truth, or be profitable for doctrine…The plural of elohim may just as well designate a multiplicity of divine potentialities in the deity as three personal distinctions, or it may be explained as the plural of majesty and excellency. Such forms of expression are susceptible of too many explanations to be used as valid proof texts of the Trinity" (Milton Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics, p. 587).
Is the Holy Spirit a Third Person?

It is completely misleading to read into the Bible a third Person.

"Although this spirit is often described in personal terms, it seems quite clear that the sacred writers [of the Hebrew Scriptures] never conceived or presented this spirit as a distinct person" (Edmund Fortman, The Triune God, p. 9).
"Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find any clear indication of a Third Person" (The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912, Vol. 15, p. 49).
"The Old Testament clearly does not envisage God’s spirit as a person…God’s spirit is simply God’s power. If it is sometimes represented as being distinct from God, it is because the breath of Yahweh acts exteriorly…The majority of New Testament texts reveal God’s spirit as something, not someone; this is especially seen in the parallelism between the spirit and the power of God" (New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967, Vol. 14, pp. 574, 575).
"The third Person was asserted at a Council of Alexandria in 362...and finally by the Council of Constantinople of 381" (A Catholic Dictionary, p. 812).
كرشنا عند الهنود الوثنيين هو ابن الله والأقنوم الثاني من ثالوث مقدس .. بل هذا هو المؤرخ الشهير ديورانت يقول في قصة الحضارة في " قيصر و المسيح " المجلد 11 صفحة 275: إن المسيحية لم تقض على الوثنية بل تبنتها. ذلك أن العقل اليوناني المحتضر عاد إلى الحياة في صورة جديدة في لاهوت الكنيسة و طقوسها.. ثم يقول: فجاءت من مصر آراء الثالوث المقدس و منها جاءت عبادة أم الطفل .. و من فيريجيا جاءت عبادة الأم العظمى .. و من سوريا أخذت عقيدة بعث "اوتيس" و من بلاد الفرس جاءت عقيدة رجوع المسيح و حكمه الأرض الف عام و قصارى القول أن المسيحية كانت آخر شئ عظيم ابتدعه العالم الوثني القديم"



Is Jesus God?

Jesus never said "I am God." He always claimed to the Messiah.

"Jesus is not God but God’s representative, and, as such, so completely and totally acts on God’s behalf that he stands in God’s stead before the world…The gospel [of John] clearly states that God and Jesus are not to be understood as identical persons, as in 14:28, ‘the Father is greater than I’" (Jacob Jervell, Jesus in the Gospel of John, 1984, p. 21).
"Apparently Paul did not call Jesus God" (Sydney Cave, D.D., Doctrine of the Person of Christ, p. 48).
"Paul habitually differentiates Christ from God" (C.J. Cadoux, A Pilgrim’s Further Progress, pp. 40, 42).
"Paul never equates Jesus with God" (W.R. Matthews, The Problem of Christ in the 20th Century, Maurice Lectures, 1949, p. 22).
"Paul never gives to Christ the name or description of ‘God’" (Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, Vol. 1, p. 194).
"When the New Testament writers speak of Jesus Christ, they do not speak of Him nor do they think of Him as God" (J.M. Creed, The Divinity of Jesus Christ, pp. 122-123).
"The ancients made a wrong use of [John 10:30, "I and the Father are one"] to prove that Christ is...of the same essence with the Father. For Christ does not argue about the unity of substance, but about the agreement that he has with the Father" (John Calvin, Commentary on John).