Hippolytus Against the Heresy of One Noetus

"See, brethren, what a rash and audacious dogma they have introduced, when they say without shame, the Father is Himself Christ, Himself the Son, Himself was born, Himself suffered, Himself raised Himself. But it is not so. The Scriptures speak what is right, but Noetus is of a different mind from them (Scripture). Yet, though Noetus does not understand the truth, the Scriptures are not at once to be repudiated. For who will not say there is one God? Ye he will not on that account deny the economy of the number and dispositions of the persons in the Trinity.

- Hippolytus Against the Heresy of One Noetus

St. Hippolytus martyrdom is known on the historical testimony to be thrown into a canal and drowned; his martyrdom was at Sardinia, at the time of the commencement of the reign of Maximin the Thracian. A.D. 235-39.

So Noetus was two faced, because he says God is one and even affirms the 3 persons in creation, but before creation denies the Trinity.

Modalists make God a schizophrenic with multiple personality talking to himself. They treat the 3 persons as emanations of God, names of God as in the OT, and Russian Dolls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTIKKgn6UnY

Gnostic emanations are like throwing a pebble into a lake and watching the ripples which is very much like pantheism. Sproul is a calvinist so he is going to hell, but he understands modalism very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX2_hd65ado

[Jhn 17:3-5 KJV] 3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. 4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. 5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

Jesus existed before the world. He always existed as 1 Person of the Godhead.