For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
(1Jn 5:7. KJV)
One's view of God is just so fundamental that it will in some way influence just about everything one believes and does if they are serious about their faith. In some ways nothing really illustrates this more than the belief most in Christendom insist is the essential doctrine of Christianity and the Gospel, the fourth century mystery doctrine of the Trinity. We call it that because the Trinity was suggested as a solution to the yet ongoing conflict between the followers of Anathasius, who taught a dualistic God and Arius, who taught that there was only one truly God and that Jesus was a created being by three theologians in Cappadocia. In the end the new teaching prevailed and theologians have since tried to prove that the trinity was what the Apostles taught.
The Trinity Doctrine is first and foremost a mystery doctrine which the mind of man cannot really comprehend. So it is somewhat indefinable. For the purposes of our discussion, though, we will use the above symbol and the spurious verse 1 John 5:7 found in the King James Version and many other translations of the Bible as out model since both are put forward as statements of what the Trinity is by Trinitarians themselves. Since they see fit to use both, we're not setting up a strawman to knock down. In fact, all we're gong to do is once again do what Jesus told his followers to do, that is see what the scriptures say. We will plan to establish what the Bible teaches through what it plainly says, and it only. Does it teach anything like what we see above? This is what we see.
One True God
שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה׀ אֶחָֽד׃
(Deut 6:4, Leningrad Codex)
Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah. And you shall love Jehovah your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
(Deu 6:4-5 Jay Green's Literal Version)
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 are known among Jews as the Shema, after the first word which means "hear!" This is the first and most important commandment of the Mosaic Law according to no less a person than Jesus himself:
But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
(Mat 22:34-38)
Now, we want to be careful here in concluding that Jesus didn't sign onto the preceding verse because he revealed something new, One thing we are coming to appreciate through our study of Hebrew is that Jesus never took anything out of context, he always kept things in harmony with their context and sometimes used a verse to point to something else through its context beyond the obvious, one example would be his last words on the cross found at .Luke 23:46 where he quoted the first part of Psalm 31:5. The context of the statement, namely the second part which he apparently didn't have the energy left to finish is a remarkable statement of faith in his resurrection and well worth going to an digging into the word used there so many translators seem to have a problem with, but we digress.
The point is that Jesus of Nazareth, who knew the truth of the matter, was a practicing Jew who affirmed the uncompromising statement of truth revealed in the Shema. He had to be in every respect in order to provide the sacrifice which covers our sins. Everything in that statement in Deuteronomy "Jehovah our God is on Jehovah" is in the singular. So it states uncompromisingly there is only one Jehovah, not two or three. Note as well that there is no statement there which denies there are any other Gods out there. There are. And Jesus apparently took a little delight out of pointing that out to the Jews himself when he said to them "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?" (John 10: 34, where he quotes Psalm 82:6) That, by the way, was said when the Jewish leaders tried to accuse him of claiming to be God by way of refutation of their charge. Sadly, the very verse the Psalm is cited to rebuke them for making that false charge is a Trinitarian mainstay proof text for the Trinity, John 10:30! Always check to context! So if the Bible does admit there are other gods, is that an admission of polytheism?
See now that I, I am He, and there is no other God with Me. I kill, and I keep alive. I wound and I heal, and there is no deliverer from My hand. For I lift up My hand to Heaven and say, I live forever!
(Deu 32:39-40)
That is usually the text folks have in mind as the great text of Monotheism, or belief that there is one god, period. However, the way we often see it translated, as above, doesn't really convey what the Hebrew text really says. About the closest I can find is the ESV which reads:
See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
They use the word "beside" to render the Hebrew word immad (H5978) which in this text carries the idea of "equal to" Almighty God. There is a reason why he is called that, there is and never will be anyone equal to him.
The Bible writers often used the word elohim, the plural form of eloah, to refer to God. However, Hebrew had the device called the plural of excellence where somebody is spoken of in the plural form as a kind of honor. Our use of the plural to refer to ourselves is a form of that devise, however, formal writing requires its use instead of the first person "I." We know Ancient Hebrew had the Plural of excellence because Joseph's brothers used it when they called him the "Lord's" (Adonai) of Egypt (Gen. 42:33). This was one of the ways the Hebrews used to make it clear their God was above all others'.
Jesus
In the beginning was the Word. And the word was with God. And the Word was godlike.
(John 1:1)
According to the latest Koine Greek scholarship that is how John 1:1 should be translated, but let's not hold our breaths on that, shall we. This, by the way, is our introduction to the fact that our Lord existed in heaven from before the beginning of the world. All we've done is taken the assertion that the second occurrence of the word "god" in the Greek is qualitative, or pointing out a quality of the Word, that he was like God and implemented it. These days the closest we're going to see that is to call the Word "divine" with the understanding that the readers are going to think "God." So right from the get go we see here that Jesus was a separate begin.
In the the Revelation Jesus gives the testimony about himself that he is "the beginning of God's creation." (Rev. 3:14). Jesus told his disciples "Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I." (John 14:28) and in the very next chapter he said "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." (Joh 15:1-2) He told Mary "... Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." (Joh 20:17) There are many others throughout the Gospels and elsewhere which show that the Father and the Son are in an unequal relationship.
The Apostle Paul understood that Jesus was of the same form (morphe in the Greek) as God (Philippians 2:6) but that he was different since he also called him "an image of the invisible God," a verse often translated incorrectly on the grounds of theology alone (Col. 1:15). In fact, go back to Phillipians and read the next couple of verses and we find Paul contrasts Jesus' attitude with that of Satan because he "did think of equality to God as something to be grasped." In the fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians we find the following remarkable statement about Jesus:
Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
(1Co 15:24-28)
So everywhere we see in plain language, no need for theological philosophy just plain language, that the Father and the son are separate and the son is in a subordinate relationship to the Father. Now compare what the Bible plainly says with the diagram and spurious verse above. They just don't match no matter how we might try to squeeze and pull and shove to try and put them together. That is why one of the biggest impediments to the Jews accepting Jesus as their Messiah has been the Trinity Doctrine., not only does it not fit the Tanach but it doesn't fit the Christians scriptures either.
Of course Jesus did say that "Before Abraham was I am." Many take that as a reference to Exodus 3:14 where most English translations translate God in answer to Moses' question about who he is as saying "I am." but there is a problem there, God used the causative form of the verb "to exist" there (Hebrew doesn't have the verb "to be" and utilizes two different verbs for the concept of existing.). So God understands what Moses was really asking for and revealed the surety of Israel's deliverance by suing both forms of the verb "to exist" in his answer which goes through verse 17. Not even the LXX uses "I am" to translate the second occurrence of ehyeh in the verse. Instead they used the word on, which places God outside of time, the immortal one. So the connection they allege isn't really there.
That is the evidence my friends and readers. Time and again we've seen or heard admissions out of trinitarian scholars that if one looks for the Trinity in the Bible plain language they simply will not find it. That is why we do not affirm the Trinity Doctrine. It would also appear that in the process we aso took care of a couple of other points in our statement of belief. Until next time!
