Today I'd like to talk about modalism.

When I was 20, I began writing and performing comedy review shows with my friends at university.

And when you have dozens of characters in your show, but only three actual people in the cast,

the three of you have to find a way of playing all the roles yourself.

So you run off stage at the end of one skit, you put on some makeup, a silly voice and a big hat, and hey

presto, you're a completely different character in the next. It's you all the time

of course. You can't try to play two or three different roles simultaneously, not without things descending into complete absurdity.

But if you're quick enough between scenes, you give the fleeting illusion that there are more people involved in your very low budget production than there actually are.

I mentioned this autobiographical detail because in trying to explain the triune nature of God,

father, son and Holy Spirit. Some people use a similar kind of

illustration. They say, there's only one God, but he can manifest himself in three different ways as father, son or spirit.

They're like three different masks that God wears at different times and in different places.

Or they might put it like this.

They'll say, just think about water.

It can change into three different states,

and yet it's still water.

At room temperature, it's a liquid, then if you freeze it it becomes ice and then if you boil it it becomes a gas, but it's always water. And that's like God, isn't it? God is like water because he can exist in three different states,

but he's still God whatever form he takes. As pleasingly simple as this sounds as an explanation of the Trinity, there's a problem, and the problem is that this

is a terrible explanation of the Trinity. In fact, this belief about the nature of God is a long

rejected heresy called modalism.

Modalism says that there are no personal distinctions within the Godhead.

Instead, God has, as it were, three different masks which he puts on depending

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