odox like sacrilege, but I mean it
seriously. Think of it for a moment! God dividing himself, one part
in heaven, one part on earth and the third part, the Holy Ghost, a
go-between! Boil it down to its last analysis and this is what it
means. Either this, or three separate gods, one of whom comes to earth
to die in order to appease the wrath of the other, the third remaining
in heaven with the first until the second returns, when He would come
to earth to continue the work begun by the second. There would thus be
always two gods in heaven and one on earth. This is, in a nutshell,
the sum and substance of Trinitarian orthodox Christianity.

We are told seriously that "there is no other name given under heaven,
nor among men, whereby we may be saved except Jesus Christ." And that
in order to be saved, we must believe in him as the only begotten Son
of God, and in the atoning sacrifice of his death for our sins. Here I
seriously inquired: If the salvation of the human race is entirely and
exclusively dependent upon faith in the merits of the death of Jesus as
an atoning sacrifice, what became of all the people who died before his
coming? Orthodoxy answers that they were saved by faith in the
_Promised Savior to come_, as given to Abraham, Moses, and the
prophets. If so, how many were saved? The Jewish nation never looked
for a spiritual Messiah. It was always a temporal one. There is no
evidence that they ever had the remotest conception of a Messiah that
was to make a vicarious atoning sacrifice of himself for them. Hence
their faith in this promise was in vain. It was not the kind that
saves, according to orthodoxy. An occasional prophet, like Isaiah or
Jeremiah, or some others, _might_ have so understood and believed it.
But very few, if any, others did. Then the great mass of "God's chosen
people" are now in hell; for they did not believe _rightly_; and all
the balance of the world is there because they never heard of such a
promise and hence did not believe at all!

But the question here arises, If salvation from Abraham to Christ was
secured by faith in the promised Messiah _to come_; and which, as we
have just seen, according to orthodox definitions, was practically a
complete failure; how were they saved from the time of Adam until the
promise made to Abraham?

The answer of orthodoxy is, By the promise made to Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden, that "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpe