Also an attempt to protect the oneness of God, the heresy of modalism (sometimes called Sabellianism) is subtler than adoptionism. Instead of simply denying that Jesus is God, modalism would understand Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three modes in which the one God works in the world. For modalists, Father, Son, and Spirit are not the deepest truth about God. Instead, they are like three masks God wears as he goes to work in the world. The real truth about God, for the modalist, is hiding behind those masks.
