{"id":772,"date":"2012-04-23T18:40:30","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T01:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/?page_id=772"},"modified":"2012-04-23T18:40:30","modified_gmt":"2012-04-24T01:40:30","slug":"three-or-one","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/?page_id=772","title":{"rendered":"Three or One?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In ancient times many people believed there were many gods.\u00a0 Usually their gods had different levels of power.\u00a0 They usually also had a certain area or realm of the physical world (including parts of our lives) which they controlled.\u00a0 Often these gods competed with each other for the attention of mankind.\u00a0 There was usually a supreme god but they usually just had a little more power that the others.\u00a0 The Bible, (both I the Old and New Testaments (the two major divisions of the Bible) gives a very different picture of God.\u00a0\u00a0 The Israelites were told to have no other gods (Exodus 20:13) and they were told to fear God and serve only him (Deuteronomy 6:13).\u00a0 Jesus repeated this verse when the Devil tempted Jesus to worship him (Luke 4:7).\u00a0 James told his readers that it was a good thing that they believed that there was only one God and noted that even demons believed this truth (James 2:19).\u00a0 In Genesis 1 we see that God is credited with creating all there is.\u00a0 In Genesis 3 we see the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, had a friendship with that same God.\u00a0 Throughout Genesis we see the story of that God\u2019s involvement with mankind and specifically with the family of one man, Abraham and a specific group of his descendants called Israelites (See \u201cThe Twelve\u201d<\/a> and \u201cThe Old Testament Connection\u201d<\/a> for more about that).\u00a0 In Exodus 3:14 we see one of those descendants, Moses, meeting basically face to face with God and being given a mission to do.\u00a0 At that point Moses asked God for his personal name as a sign of authority as he did what he was given to do.\u00a0 That name was 4 letters in the Hebrew language, YHWH (in Moses day they did not write down the vowels).\u00a0 The Israelites had so much respect for God that they would not say his personal name and often they would substitute the word lord or god fro the personal name.\u00a0 In many English translations the translators still follow the same practice and use an all capitals LORD or GOD when they come to those four letters.\u00a0 The four letters are a form of the verb \u201cto be\u201d and that is why some translations use \u201cI AM WHO I AM\u201d in Exodus 3:14 since that is what the word God spoke to Moses meant (See \u201cWhat\u2019s in a Name\u201d <\/a>for more on names in the Bible).\u00a0 Without the vowels we can only guess at how the name is pronounced so different translators have come up with basically two \u201ctranslations\u201d of God\u2019s personal name, Jehovah and Yahweh.\u00a0 The belief in only one god is called monotheism.<\/p>\n

In Isaiah 9:6-7 we see a prediction of a coming ruler for the Israelite people.\u00a0 He is called Eternal Father and Mighty God among other things.\u00a0 This promised future ruler came to be called \u201cmessiah\u201d in the Jewish culture.\u00a0 As we have seen during our reading in Isaiah this promised king is also called the \u201cshoot and branch of Jesse (David\u2019s father)(Isaiah 11:1).\u00a0 In the New Testament Matthew goes through a whole lineage from Abraham through David to Jesus who he tells us is the Christ (Matthew 1:6-16).\u00a0 The word Christ in Greek has the exact same meaning as the Hebrew word messiah.\u00a0 So Matthew, an Israelite or Jew, tells us that Jesus is the messiah, the promised coming king from David\u2019s family who is identified in Isaiah as the Eternal father and Mighty God.\u00a0 For serious Jews it\u00a0 would be unthinkable to say that a person was God, let alone Might God.\u00a0 In Matthew 1:23, Matthew tells us that Mary was a virgin and that Jesus was created in her through the power of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 He then tells us that this is a fulfillment of Isaiah\u2019s prediction in Isaiah 7:14.\u00a0 That promised son is linked in Isaiah with the child in 9:6-7 and the shoot in Isaiah 11:1.\u00a0 In Matthew\u2019s time the devoted Jews were fiercely monotheistic.\u00a0 In Luke 2:25-32 there is the story of a devoted Jewish priest named Simeon.\u00a0 He had a vision from God in which he was promised he would see the person who would bring comfort to the nation of Israel, probably a reference to the descriptions of the messiah found in Isaiah 9.\u00a0 When Jesus was brought to him for dedication he declared that the vision he had was fulfilled, and then called Jesus a\u201d light to the Gentiles [non Jews] and the glory of Israel\u201d.\u00a0 This was probably a quote from Isaiah 9:4.\u00a0 In John 1:1 John identifies a person he calls \u201cthe word\u201d.\u00a0 He also tells us that the word was with God and was God (kind of weird thing to say, but we will see what that might have meant shortly).\u00a0 In verse 14 John then tells us that that \u201cWord\u201d became flesh.\u00a0 According to John 1:15, 29-30 this \u201cWord\u201d was Jesus.\u00a0 Also in John 1 we see John the Baptist (not the same John who wrote the book)\u00a0 telling the religious leaders that he was a fulfillment of a prediction by Isaiah to prepare the people for the \u201cLORD\u201d (Isaiah 40:3).\u00a0 So John the Baptist was actually identifying Jesus as Yahweh.\u00a0 The religious leaders asked John if he was the Messiah and he told them he was not.\u00a0 He then told him someone greater was coming after him, someone who was greater because he existed before him, Jesus.\u00a0 Interestingly John was several months older than Jesus.\u00a0 Finally in John 8 Jesus is in a very hot conversation with the religious leader of his day.\u00a0 In John 8:56 he claimed to have been seen by Abraham.\u00a0 The Jews told him it was impossible because he wasn\u2019t even 50 years old.\u00a0 His answer to them was that before Abraham was born \u201cI AM\u201d.\u00a0 What he said is the Greek equal of the Hebrew \u201cYHWH\u201d.\u00a0 The leaders understood what he was saying and grabbed stones to kill him, as the Law of Moses commanded.\u00a0 Jesus words, the words of others, and his actions all indicate that Jesus is Yahweh of the Old Testament.\u00a0 But Jesus also identifies his \u201cFather\u201d as God (See John 10:30-33).\u00a0 In those verses Jesus claimed that he and the Father were one.\u00a0 In John 14:8-9 Jesus told his followers if they wanted to see God the Father all they needed to do was look at him.\u00a0 Later in that same chapter he identified someone called the Spirit of truth as another of the same kind as him (and the father).<\/p>\n

These and many other verses tell us that Jesus is God, the Spirit is God and the Father is God.\u00a0 Because the Bible clearly tells us there is only one God the early Christians struggled with how this all worked out.\u00a0 For some the solution was that God existed in different forms at different times, sometimes the Son (Jesus), sometimes the Father, and sometimes the Spirit, this idea was called Modalism. On different occasions in the New Testament we see Jesus and either the Father or the Holy Spirit or all three existing at the same time.\u00a0 At the baptism of Jesus we see the Father speaking from Heaven and the Holy Spirit coming down on Jesus (Mark 1:9-13).\u00a0 In Hebrews 1:13 we see God the Father having Jesus sit beside him while he subdues their enemies.\u00a0 So we see that although all three are identified as God that they are all different persons. In the early 200\u2019s AD Tertullian a Christian scholar used the word Trinity to describe the relationship between Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 In the early years of Christianity the churches would get the leaders together to try to figure out some of these hard ideas. In 325 AD at one of theses meetings the church leaders all affirmed that all three were God, were different persons, but one essence or being.\u00a0 Three persons, one God.\u00a0 The reality is a mystery but that is the conclusion they came to after considering all of the scriptures.\u00a0 Some believers like the term \u201cTri-unity\u201d instead of \u201cTrinity\u201d but the idea is the same.\u00a0 It is interesting that in the very first Chapter of the Bible that God said (to whom you might think), \u201cLet us make man in our image\u201d.\u00a0 Also the word for God in Hebrew is \u201cElohim\u201d, it is a plural word that can also mean angles or judges, or idols (gods).\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t change the fact that wne it is used of the one true God it remains a plural.\u00a0 It appears that God the father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit were talking among them selves when they were creating the first man.\u00a0 The Trinity is a mystery but also a reality.<\/p>\n

Finally it is important to understand that although they are all God and all agree they seem to have different functions.\u00a0 And also God the Father seems to be the final authority, but only by agreement.\u00a0 Jesus said to the Father, \u201cNot my will but yours\u201d.\u00a0 Indicating that his human side would rather avoid dying on the cross.\u00a0\u00a0 It also appears that Jesus was guided by the Holy Spirit rather than acting on his own divine authority (Isaiah 11:1-2).\u00a0 This is not because he has less authority but because the three persons of the one God have decided to act this way with respect to each other, they have taken on different roles in their combined existence (See Philippians 3:5-7 where Jesus chooses to limit his use of his personal divine power).\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In ancient times many people believed there were many gods.\u00a0 Usually their gods had different levels of power.\u00a0 They usually also had a certain area or realm of the physical world (including parts of our lives) which they controlled.\u00a0 Often these gods competed with each other for the attention of mankind.\u00a0 There was usually a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":50,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-772","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":773,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/772\/revisions\/773"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/50"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}