If Both God Of Jews And Christians Are The Same, Why Then It Is Monotheism Vs Trinity?
Question: If the God of the nation of Israel and the God of Christianity are the same, why the God of Israel who revealed Himself as one God, have to reveal to Christians as the Trinity in unity? The God who revealed himself through the Law of Moses, has to reveal himself through the grace of Jesus?
Answer: Greetings in Jesus wonderful name!
Judaism believes the doctrine of monotheism, which means that there is only one God. Duet 6:4 says, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!"
Christianity believes that Trinity is foundational to the Christian faith.
The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person. All the three are consubstantial which is of the same substance or essence or nature. In this context, a "nature" is what one is, whereas a "person" is who one is.
These above definitions express three crucial truths: (1) the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, (2) each Person is fully God, (3) there is only one God. The word "Trinity" comes from the Latin noun "trinitas" meaning "three are one." It was first introduced by Tertullian at the end of the 2nd century but received wide acceptance in the 4th and 5th centuries.
Trinity is a word that cannot be found in the Bible, but the above concept of Trinity was what preached by all the apostles, and this is the understanding about God of the Christians they had in their mind in the first century when they established it under the guidance of Jesus who is the cornerstone. So a couple of centuries later after their death, people wanted to corrupt this concept of one God in essence and three in personhood. At that time the leaders of the Church gathered together and wanted to preserve the true concept of this Christian God, so they formed the word 'Trinity', which means 'three person in unity'.
All through the Bible, God is presented as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is not three gods, but three persons in the one and only God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons. The Bible speaks of the Father as God (Philippians 1:2), Jesus as God (Titus 2:13), and the Holy Spirit as God (Acts 5:3–4). Although they are one God in substance, essence, nature and in the character of their being and make up, yet they play unique role to fulfill His will in the eternal destiny of his own creation. They are three distinct person in tri-unity, which in other words means, inhabiting one another and working together to accomplish the divine design in the universe.
In our limited minds, if we were to use math, it would not be, 1+1+1=3. It would be 1x1x1=1. God is a triune God. Thus the term: "Tri" meaning three, and "Unity" meaning one, Tri+Unity = Trinity. We humans, though we are many, yet we all have the same trait of humanness in our basic make up and ability, to make one human family of humanity, God is three "Persons" who are unique in personhood of their individuality, but have the same essence of deity within them all, in a consubstantial way.
In the Bible, God says, "Let Us make man in our image…male and female He created them." (Gen 1:26-27). You see here a mixture of plural which is 'us' and singular which is 'He' in the pronouns. This shows that both the compound oneness of God's essence, and the triune personhood are contained in the same context to mean that Trinity is the only reasonable explanation to the greatness of describing God in both the singularity of oneness in essence and plurality of triune personhood of God at the same time.
Both the New Testament and Old Testament is full of Scriptures that point to the concept of Trinity as the only truth.
Here are some key verses expressing the concept of the Trinity in the New Testament Matt 28:19; John 15:26; 2 Cor 13:14. Also we can see a clear demonstration of the working of Trinity in both the Baptism of Jesus and the Transfiguration of Jesus. In both of them, the Divine eternal uncreated Son of God was revealed from God the Father through the Holy Spirit (Matt 3:16-17; 17:5).
The Scriptures that clearly points to the Trinity in the Old Testament are, Gen 1:26-27; Isa 48:16-17; in Isa 54:5 we see the word 'Maker' is plural in Hebrew.
Jesus, being God, is the creator of all things, the Bible says: "All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. " (John 1:3). Jesus is not a created angel, He is referred to as the Angel of the Lord, which means uncreated one who limited Himself to look like a angel to serve as the leader of God's angels to serve humanity and the people of God, as the Bible asks, "For to which of the angels did He ever say, "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You"? And again, "I will be a Father to Him And He shall be a Son to Me"? " (Hebrews 1:5).
People may ask was not Jesus told as the one begotten of the Father (John 3:16)? Yes he was the one and only begotten of the Father, which means begotten at his resurrection as Acts 13:33 says, thereby fulfilling Ps 2:7. Paul one of the greatest of the apostles of all time, said that Jesus, "14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. 19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell." (Col 1:14-18, 19).
In other words, Jesus was uncreated, co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit, co-habiting in each other, co-creators in creation of the heavens and the earth, eternally existent as the 'Great I am' of the Old and New Testament who forgives, the firstborn meaning "the first existing" person in the universe over all creation, exact image of the invisible God. Not only all things were created through Him, but for Him which means Jesus is the very reason for whom all things exist. In Jesus all things find their reason for existence as He is before all thing and within his idea He made all things to exist. If we want to know fully what God is like, we need to look at Jesus in whom all the fullness of God dwells. The Church is directed by Jesus who rose up again as the first Son of God to live immortally as a human by the reason of obedience, so that other sons of God will follow him who has pre-eminence over them all.
We should understand that God chose not to reveal the Trinity in the Old Testament and just the oneness of God in it (Deut 6:4), because the surrounding nations were following idols and gods of their own imagination that has corrupted them and have turned them away from following the living one true God (Rom 1:20-24, 25), God didn't want to confuse His own people with this complicated doctrine of Trinity. Yet God had given enough clues in Old Testament Scriptures to make them think deeply with questions and queries that must make people of Israel wonder about the very concept of Trinity which He had given subtly through implication in a concealed way to reveal the doctrine of Trinity. The God who called Abraham and made him to become a nation, didn't want His people to be misled by the nations around them by them not understanding the tough concept of the trinitarian plurality of the Godhead in person, as these pagans around the nation of Israel worshiped the images of the creature and not the one Creator who is only worthy of all our worship and adoration (Isa 51:2).
THE TRINITY FATHER SON HOLY SPIRIT
Called God Phil. 1:2 John 1:1,14; Col. 2:9 Acts 5:3-4
Creator Isaiah 64:8 John 1:3; Col. 1:15-17 Job 33:4, 26:13
Resurrects 1 Thess. 1:10 John 2:19, 10:17 Rom. 8:11
Indwells 2 Cor. 6:16 Col. 1:27 John 14:17
Everywhere 1 Kings 8:27 Matt. 28:20 Psalm 139:7-10
All knowing 1 John 3:20 John 16:30; 21:17 1 Cor. 2:10-11
But when God separated the Church, it was people from all language, nations, colors who were in idolatry were saved by God and made to become His people (Hos 2:23; Rom 9:25; 1 Peter 2:10), and therefore with an increased anointing of the Holy Spirit to each individuals in the Church (1 John 2:20, 27), there came a better capacity for the Church to understand the concept of the Trinity (Acts 26:17-18). Law was given by God through Moses, so that they could know their sinfulness and trust Jesus who will give them salvation grace to be saved from sin (John 1:16-17; Gal 3:19, 24; Eph 2:8-9).
Having the Law in their hand, the Jews waited for the Messiah for nearly thousand five hundred years, but suddenly Jesus as the Messiah of God came whom they rejected because He did not fit in to their fleshly mind having no spiritual inclination to study about the two visits of the Messiah first as a suffering person and then later as a conquering person over the whole world, and so the Christians were then chosen by God because they were willing to follow the Messiah whom God sent to save people from their sins (Matt 1:21).
So according to me today in our world Christians do not debate, Monotheism Vs Trinity, but rather declare that Monotheism is within Trinity. So we come to the conclusion that asking the question whether God is three or one, is not right, because God is one in essence which the Christian people affirm, of which the Jewish people misunderstand and disagree without taking in to consideration all the plurality of the name of God as 'Elohim' which is used 4000 times in the Bible. 'El' as singular is used only in the following Scriptures (Gen. 33:20; Num 23:19). The Word 'Lord' which in Hebrew is 'Adonai' is always plural (Gen 18:30; Ex 34:23; Deut 10:17; Joshua 3:11,13; Ps 45:11; 114:7; 135:5; Mal 1:6). When God uses the word 'US/OUR' it does not include angels (Gen 18:16-17; 1 Kin 22:19-22). Angels do not dialogue with God in creation or counsel Him with wisdom for execution when God uses singular or plural pronouns like "I" (Isa 6:8), "Myself" (Gen 9:9), "Me" (Zech 12:10), "Us" (Gen 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isa 6:8), "Our" (Gen 1:26), we must understand that God takes no consultation from his creation, so the angels rather obey His Word (Isa 40:13; Rom 11:34), serve Him and so do His will (Psa 103:20-21). Only the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are those whom God dialogues and have fellowship within whenever He is in creative consultation or process or execution (John 15:26).
The plural nouns and pro-nouns applied to God, like US, OUR, Elohim, Adonai are powerful evidence of the Trinity hidden in the Old Testament, to be discovered after the coming of Christ. The almost exclusive use of the plural elohim for God and adonai for Lord, make a strong case that any honest seeker could see. This extensive pattern is irrefutable.
For example, when God said in Genesis 2:24 "the two shall become one [echad] flesh" it is the same word for "one" that was used in Deut 6:4 "The LORD our God, the LORD is one!", people who see one as one in numeral, when we ask them how the husband and wife can become one in person, there they will say it is just symbolic in oneness. If so, we should apply the same meaning here to mean that God is one in oneness and therefore three in person. The two, as male and female, are now one Human — one "Adam" (Gen 3:22, 24). So the three person, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are now one in Godness - one "God" just like many grapes are in one vine (John 15:1; Gal 5:22-23).
The God of the Old Testament is still the same as the God of the New. In Christianity, statements about the one and only God are not just intended to distinguish the Hebraic understanding from the polytheistic view, which see divine power as shared by several beings, beings which can and do disagree and have conflicts with each other, but oneness and unity of the Godhead is expressed as the core of the apostles teaching in the very foundation of Christianity to express and reveal in the New Testament, what has been concealed in the Old Testament.
Much Blessings.....
Answer: Greetings in Jesus wonderful name!
Judaism believes the doctrine of monotheism, which means that there is only one God. Duet 6:4 says, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!"
Christianity believes that Trinity is foundational to the Christian faith.
The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person. All the three are consubstantial which is of the same substance or essence or nature. In this context, a "nature" is what one is, whereas a "person" is who one is.
These above definitions express three crucial truths: (1) the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, (2) each Person is fully God, (3) there is only one God. The word "Trinity" comes from the Latin noun "trinitas" meaning "three are one." It was first introduced by Tertullian at the end of the 2nd century but received wide acceptance in the 4th and 5th centuries.
Trinity is a word that cannot be found in the Bible, but the above concept of Trinity was what preached by all the apostles, and this is the understanding about God of the Christians they had in their mind in the first century when they established it under the guidance of Jesus who is the cornerstone. So a couple of centuries later after their death, people wanted to corrupt this concept of one God in essence and three in personhood. At that time the leaders of the Church gathered together and wanted to preserve the true concept of this Christian God, so they formed the word 'Trinity', which means 'three person in unity'.
All through the Bible, God is presented as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is not three gods, but three persons in the one and only God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons. The Bible speaks of the Father as God (Philippians 1:2), Jesus as God (Titus 2:13), and the Holy Spirit as God (Acts 5:3–4). Although they are one God in substance, essence, nature and in the character of their being and make up, yet they play unique role to fulfill His will in the eternal destiny of his own creation. They are three distinct person in tri-unity, which in other words means, inhabiting one another and working together to accomplish the divine design in the universe.
In our limited minds, if we were to use math, it would not be, 1+1+1=3. It would be 1x1x1=1. God is a triune God. Thus the term: "Tri" meaning three, and "Unity" meaning one, Tri+Unity = Trinity. We humans, though we are many, yet we all have the same trait of humanness in our basic make up and ability, to make one human family of humanity, God is three "Persons" who are unique in personhood of their individuality, but have the same essence of deity within them all, in a consubstantial way.
In the Bible, God says, "Let Us make man in our image…male and female He created them." (Gen 1:26-27). You see here a mixture of plural which is 'us' and singular which is 'He' in the pronouns. This shows that both the compound oneness of God's essence, and the triune personhood are contained in the same context to mean that Trinity is the only reasonable explanation to the greatness of describing God in both the singularity of oneness in essence and plurality of triune personhood of God at the same time.
Both the New Testament and Old Testament is full of Scriptures that point to the concept of Trinity as the only truth.
Here are some key verses expressing the concept of the Trinity in the New Testament Matt 28:19; John 15:26; 2 Cor 13:14. Also we can see a clear demonstration of the working of Trinity in both the Baptism of Jesus and the Transfiguration of Jesus. In both of them, the Divine eternal uncreated Son of God was revealed from God the Father through the Holy Spirit (Matt 3:16-17; 17:5).
The Scriptures that clearly points to the Trinity in the Old Testament are, Gen 1:26-27; Isa 48:16-17; in Isa 54:5 we see the word 'Maker' is plural in Hebrew.
Jesus, being God, is the creator of all things, the Bible says: "All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. " (John 1:3). Jesus is not a created angel, He is referred to as the Angel of the Lord, which means uncreated one who limited Himself to look like a angel to serve as the leader of God's angels to serve humanity and the people of God, as the Bible asks, "For to which of the angels did He ever say, "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You"? And again, "I will be a Father to Him And He shall be a Son to Me"? " (Hebrews 1:5).
People may ask was not Jesus told as the one begotten of the Father (John 3:16)? Yes he was the one and only begotten of the Father, which means begotten at his resurrection as Acts 13:33 says, thereby fulfilling Ps 2:7. Paul one of the greatest of the apostles of all time, said that Jesus, "14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. 19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell." (Col 1:14-18, 19).
In other words, Jesus was uncreated, co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit, co-habiting in each other, co-creators in creation of the heavens and the earth, eternally existent as the 'Great I am' of the Old and New Testament who forgives, the firstborn meaning "the first existing" person in the universe over all creation, exact image of the invisible God. Not only all things were created through Him, but for Him which means Jesus is the very reason for whom all things exist. In Jesus all things find their reason for existence as He is before all thing and within his idea He made all things to exist. If we want to know fully what God is like, we need to look at Jesus in whom all the fullness of God dwells. The Church is directed by Jesus who rose up again as the first Son of God to live immortally as a human by the reason of obedience, so that other sons of God will follow him who has pre-eminence over them all.
We should understand that God chose not to reveal the Trinity in the Old Testament and just the oneness of God in it (Deut 6:4), because the surrounding nations were following idols and gods of their own imagination that has corrupted them and have turned them away from following the living one true God (Rom 1:20-24, 25), God didn't want to confuse His own people with this complicated doctrine of Trinity. Yet God had given enough clues in Old Testament Scriptures to make them think deeply with questions and queries that must make people of Israel wonder about the very concept of Trinity which He had given subtly through implication in a concealed way to reveal the doctrine of Trinity. The God who called Abraham and made him to become a nation, didn't want His people to be misled by the nations around them by them not understanding the tough concept of the trinitarian plurality of the Godhead in person, as these pagans around the nation of Israel worshiped the images of the creature and not the one Creator who is only worthy of all our worship and adoration (Isa 51:2).
THE TRINITY FATHER SON HOLY SPIRIT
Called God Phil. 1:2 John 1:1,14; Col. 2:9 Acts 5:3-4
Creator Isaiah 64:8 John 1:3; Col. 1:15-17 Job 33:4, 26:13
Resurrects 1 Thess. 1:10 John 2:19, 10:17 Rom. 8:11
Indwells 2 Cor. 6:16 Col. 1:27 John 14:17
Everywhere 1 Kings 8:27 Matt. 28:20 Psalm 139:7-10
All knowing 1 John 3:20 John 16:30; 21:17 1 Cor. 2:10-11
But when God separated the Church, it was people from all language, nations, colors who were in idolatry were saved by God and made to become His people (Hos 2:23; Rom 9:25; 1 Peter 2:10), and therefore with an increased anointing of the Holy Spirit to each individuals in the Church (1 John 2:20, 27), there came a better capacity for the Church to understand the concept of the Trinity (Acts 26:17-18). Law was given by God through Moses, so that they could know their sinfulness and trust Jesus who will give them salvation grace to be saved from sin (John 1:16-17; Gal 3:19, 24; Eph 2:8-9).
Having the Law in their hand, the Jews waited for the Messiah for nearly thousand five hundred years, but suddenly Jesus as the Messiah of God came whom they rejected because He did not fit in to their fleshly mind having no spiritual inclination to study about the two visits of the Messiah first as a suffering person and then later as a conquering person over the whole world, and so the Christians were then chosen by God because they were willing to follow the Messiah whom God sent to save people from their sins (Matt 1:21).
So according to me today in our world Christians do not debate, Monotheism Vs Trinity, but rather declare that Monotheism is within Trinity. So we come to the conclusion that asking the question whether God is three or one, is not right, because God is one in essence which the Christian people affirm, of which the Jewish people misunderstand and disagree without taking in to consideration all the plurality of the name of God as 'Elohim' which is used 4000 times in the Bible. 'El' as singular is used only in the following Scriptures (Gen. 33:20; Num 23:19). The Word 'Lord' which in Hebrew is 'Adonai' is always plural (Gen 18:30; Ex 34:23; Deut 10:17; Joshua 3:11,13; Ps 45:11; 114:7; 135:5; Mal 1:6). When God uses the word 'US/OUR' it does not include angels (Gen 18:16-17; 1 Kin 22:19-22). Angels do not dialogue with God in creation or counsel Him with wisdom for execution when God uses singular or plural pronouns like "I" (Isa 6:8), "Myself" (Gen 9:9), "Me" (Zech 12:10), "Us" (Gen 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isa 6:8), "Our" (Gen 1:26), we must understand that God takes no consultation from his creation, so the angels rather obey His Word (Isa 40:13; Rom 11:34), serve Him and so do His will (Psa 103:20-21). Only the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are those whom God dialogues and have fellowship within whenever He is in creative consultation or process or execution (John 15:26).
The plural nouns and pro-nouns applied to God, like US, OUR, Elohim, Adonai are powerful evidence of the Trinity hidden in the Old Testament, to be discovered after the coming of Christ. The almost exclusive use of the plural elohim for God and adonai for Lord, make a strong case that any honest seeker could see. This extensive pattern is irrefutable.
For example, when God said in Genesis 2:24 "the two shall become one [echad] flesh" it is the same word for "one" that was used in Deut 6:4 "The LORD our God, the LORD is one!", people who see one as one in numeral, when we ask them how the husband and wife can become one in person, there they will say it is just symbolic in oneness. If so, we should apply the same meaning here to mean that God is one in oneness and therefore three in person. The two, as male and female, are now one Human — one "Adam" (Gen 3:22, 24). So the three person, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are now one in Godness - one "God" just like many grapes are in one vine (John 15:1; Gal 5:22-23).
The God of the Old Testament is still the same as the God of the New. In Christianity, statements about the one and only God are not just intended to distinguish the Hebraic understanding from the polytheistic view, which see divine power as shared by several beings, beings which can and do disagree and have conflicts with each other, but oneness and unity of the Godhead is expressed as the core of the apostles teaching in the very foundation of Christianity to express and reveal in the New Testament, what has been concealed in the Old Testament.
Much Blessings.....
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