Other Concepts of the Trinity

The Biblical teaching of the Trinity consists of the three main points:
1. God is three Persons - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
2. Each Person is complete God.
3. God is one.
All the unbiblical concepts deny, at least, one of these points. These concepts are considered to be heresies by the main part of Christians.

1. Modalism (modalist monarchism, Sabellianism)
Modalism teaches that there is only one Person that appears in three forms. In the Old Testament, this Person was the Father. In the Gospels, this Person was the Son. After the Day of Pentecost, this Person is the Holy Spirit.

Modalism contradicts some biblical verses, for example:

16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.
17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:16-17, New International Version)

Jesus (the Son) was baptized in the water. The Holy Spirit descended from the heavens. The Father was speaking from the heavens. All the three Persons were there at the same time.

2. Dynamic monarchism
Dynamic monarchism taught that Jesus was not God, but was a common man. Sometimes God came upon him, and he carried out God's work.

This teaching contradicts John, chapter 1:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1,2,14, New International Version)

The Word is Christ. He was God in the beginning and became a man in time.

3. Arianism
Arianism denies the full divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit. It teaches that the Son was created. This teaching contradicts the same verses from John, chapter 1.

4. Adoptianism
Adoptionism taught that Jesus lived as a common man, but then God adopted him and gave him supernatural power. This teaching also contradicts chapter 1 of John.

5. Subordinationism
Subordinationism teaches that the Son is eternal and divine, but still not equal to God and subordinate to the Father.

5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:6-8, New International Version)

Christ (the Son) is equal to the Father as God, but He humbled Himself, becoming a man.

6. Triteism
Triteism is the teaching that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three different Gods. This teaching also contradicts the Bible:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. (Deuteronomy 6:4, New International Version)