The New Testament, particularly Acts, presents conversion to faith in Jesus not as accepting a developed Trinitarian doctrine, but as:
Belief that Jesus is the Messiah (Acts 2:36; Acts 9:22),
Belief that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9),
Belief that he is the Son of God (Acts 9:20).
For example: Acts 8:37 (in later manuscripts): "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."
Even in the Gospel of John, where Jesus' identity is a major theme, his claims are consistently related to being:
Sent by the Father (John 3:17, 5:36–38),
The Son doing the Father's will (John 5:19–30),
The Messiah (John 4:26; 11:27; 20:31),
And “I am” statements, which require contextual interpretation.
In context, when he says “I am he” (John 8 ) he is referring to a question asked him, who he is, which he answered “Exactly who I have been saying I am all along”. He refers back to all his “I am” descriptions of himself as the door, the good shepherd, the light of the world, the living bread come down from heaven. and clarified it as the one sent by the Father as light of the world and judge of the world, the Son, the Messiah.
In Greek: ἐγὼ εἰμι (ego eimi), which literally just means “I am.” Whether this is a divine name or simply “I am [he]” depends on context. The Greek, originally, always capitalised all words, so modern readings that interpret this as a divine claim ("I AM" = Exodus 3:14) are interpretive, not textual.
In the context of John 8, Jesus is arguing he is:
The one sent by the Father (v. 16, 18),
Not acting on his own authority (v. 28),
The one doing what the Father taught him (v. 28–29).
So your reading—that Jesus meant "I am he", i.e., the one he has claimed to be all along, the Son sent by the Father—is linguistically and contextually viable.
Trinitarian theology, especially the formulation that Jesus is “God the Son, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father,” is not explicit in the early gospel preaching and was formalized much later:
The Council of Nicaea (325 AD): This taught a different gospel, not the gospel preached by Paul, with Jesus as the “homoousios” (the same substance) with the Father.
The Council of Constantinople (381 AD): This expanded this Trinitarian gospel to include the Holy Spirit.
The Apostolic preaching (e.g., Peter in Acts 2 or Paul in Acts 13) focuses on:
Jesus’ resurrection,
His role as Messiah,
His exaltation by God,
The call to repentance and faith in him.
Belief in his divine nature in a Nicene sense was not the criterion for salvation in those proclamations, so the Council of Nicaea effectively made official a gospel different to the gospel preached by Paul. See Galatians 1 for a hint of how Paul warned against such things, although he had specifically in mind a difference where a gospel might demand keeping of the entire Law of Moses by Gentiles.
Paul, who claimed to receive his gospel from Jesus directly (Galatians 1:11–12), emphasizes:
Justification by faith (Romans 3–5),
Belief in the resurrection (Romans 10:9),
Jesus as the Lord (Greek: Kyrios, a term that has divine overtones but can also mean "master").
Nowhere does Paul say: “You must believe Jesus is God in the ontological Trinitarian sense.”
Paul warned that anyone, even an angel of even himself, (so obviously this warning includes a gospel from a Council such as Nicaea) preached a gospel different to this, they were divinely accursed.
In summary, the strict Trinitarian version of the gospel (requiring belief in Jesus as God) is not what the earliest Christians preached or believed, and this assertion is historically and biblically grounded. The New Testament gospel centers on Jesus as:
The Messiah,
The Son of God,
Sent by the Father,
Raised by God,
Exalted as Lord.
Belief in Jesus' divinity, in the Trinitarian sense, came later as the early Church sought to articulate the mystery of Jesus’ identity in light of Jewish monotheism and Greek philosophical categories.
Stephen D Green, with input and some wording from ChatGPT
