Appendix C
"The Trinity":
Misconceptions, and the Truth
Judaism cannot accept the
Christian doctrine of the "Trinity," partly because "it just
doesn't make sense," and also because of a misunderstanding of the concept.
In this brief article, we shall try to dispel any misconceptions related to the
subject and present the biblical case for the triune nature of God.
A Mystery?
Trying to describe the nature of
God is no easy matter. Even Jewish scholars have a hard time explaining just
what or who is the Holy Spirit spoken of in the Tanakh. Is the Holy Spirit
merely an inanimate manifestation of God's presence as is suggested? If so, how
do we explain the Holy Spirit being grieved over the sin of Israel (Isa. 63:10)?
Can finite beings comprehend an
infinite God? Can anyone understand a Being that has no beginning? Could anyone
be so foolish as to claim to know the methods God used to create the world? Can
you imagine what God looks like? His height, weight and volume?
Questions like these could be
multiplied. One thing they reveal is that we should be very slow to reject any
exposition on the Godhead on the basis that it "just doesn't make
sense." This is not to shroud the issue in a mysterious cloud of smoke.
Just because I stand with those who repudiate the idea that God can be explained
in precise scientific terminology, does not mean that there are not certain
facts we can know about God's person. Scriptures reveal that God is
simultaneously a unity and a plurality.
The Deity of Jesus Defined
Though Christian expositors give
varying explanations of the "Trinity," they all agree on one essential
fact: there are three divine beings that have existed from eternity namely the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Some hold that in addition to being co-eternal,
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-equal. Many Messianic Jews rightly
differ with one aspect of the latter. While it's true that the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit are co-equal in nature, they are not so in position. Jesus said,
"The Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). While some claim that
this condition was only true during Jesus' brief three-year earthly tenure, the
Scriptures reveal that the Father held a greater position than Jesus after His
ascension, as well: "...The head of every man is Christ; and the head of
the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God..."(1 Cor. 11:3).
Though man occupies a greater position than the woman, she is no less human than
he. Similarly, just because the Father is "greater than the Son," does
not mean that the Son is any less divine in nature than His Father.
In Very Nature God
Anti-missionaries argue:
"The Messiah cannot fear God (Isa. 11:2) and be God simultaneously.
Therefore, since the Messiah is not God, and Christians claim that Jesus is God,
Jesus cannot be the Messiah." This objection can be rectified with a simple
clarification. Jesus was in very nature God, but He was not the only true God,
the Father Himself.
Who being in very nature God, did
not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself
nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And
being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to
death even death on a cross! (Phil. 2:6-8 NIV)
To become the suffering Servant
of Isaiah 53, Jesus left the right hand of God the Father, condescending to an
earthly existence in order to provide atonement for our sins. In so doing, He
forsook many of His divine prerogatives. He feared God the Father perfectly by
not sinning, and prayed to Him for His deliverance from sinful man. So Jesus,
while He was a man, could both pray and fear God the Father. While on earth,
Jesus was without the "glory" He had “with” the Father
"before the world was created" (John 17:5).
The Divine Son
"Therefore the Jews sought
all the more to kill [Jesus], because He not only broke the Sabbath [in their
minds], but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with
God" (John 5:18).
The Pharisees understood the
divine claim inherent in Jesus statement that He was the "only" Son of
God (John 3:16). And Jesus in no way repudiated their understanding, but rather
confirmed it when He replied:
...Most assuredly, I say to you,
the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do [note the
Father's superior position]; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like
manner [demonstrating their equal power]...For as the Father raises the dead and
gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. For the Father
judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor
the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not
honor the Father who sent Him (John 5:19; 21-23).
Did Jesus mean that all should
honor Him with worship even as God His Father was worshiped? Yes. Jesus in
quoting Deut. 6:13 said, "You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only
you shall serve" (Matt. 4:10). The Greek word for worship here is proskuneo.
It means "...to fall upon the knees and touch the ground with the forehead
as an expression of profound reverence, hence in the N.T. by kneeling or
prostration to do homage (to one) or make obeisance, whether in order to express
respect or to make supplication."1
It was permissible to bow down to
another human being in order to pay respect during the Old Covenant
dispensation. But in the New Covenant, this was not allowed. For merely bowing
down to Peter to pay respect to him as a man of God, Cornelius was met with the
rebuke: "Stand up; I myself am also a man!" (Acts 10:26). When John
bowed down to pay religious homage to an angel, he was strictly charged:
"See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your
brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship (proskuneo) God" (Rev.
19:10). Jesus, however, received worship on numerous occasions and did not once
rebuke the worshipers, but often commended them for their faith (Matt. 8:2;
9:18; 14:33; 15:25; 28:9,17; John 9:38) The conclusion is irresistible: Jesus,
being God's Son, is to be worshiped just as the Father is worshiped.
Son of God, Son of Man
Jesus the Son of God was worthy
of worship. He had to become the Son of man through the virgin birth to qualify
for the Messianic throne upon which He will be worshiped and adored.
I was watching in the night
visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven!
He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. Then to
Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and
languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall
not pass away, And His kingdom one which shall not be destroyed (Dan. 7:13-14).
Here the Messiah is called the
Son of Man. In the second Psalm, the Messiah is called the "Son of
God," who was to receive "the nations for [His] inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for [His] possession" (Psalm 2:7-8). This
could not have reference to David. He never ruled all the nations of the earth.
This right is reserved solely for the divine Messiah Jesus the Son of God.
Behold, He is coming with the
clouds, and every eye shall see Him, even they which pierced Him...And every
creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are
in the sea and all that are in them, I heard saying: 'Blessing and honor and
glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne [the Father], and to the Lamb
[Jesus the Son], forever and ever! (Rev. 1:7; 5:13).
Plural Nature
The concept of God's plural
nature is not a New Testament innovation. In the very beginning of the Bible, we
find the startling revelation: "And God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness..." (Gen. 1:26). The pronouns "us" and
"our" provide indisputable attestation to at least two divine beings
involved in the creative process. We learn from the New Covenant that it was the
Father who created all things through Jesus: "All things were made through
Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made" (John 1:3, cf. Heb.
1:2). Thus in Gen. 1:26 we have God the Father speaking to the Son and possibly
the Holy Spirit.2
Sigal (p. 144), Levine (p. 58)
and Troki (p. 46) all suggest that perhaps God was speaking to created angels in
Gen. 1:26. We must reject this rebuttal for two reasons: (1) Man was created in
the image of God exclusively. We are not created in the imagine of angels! (Gen.
1:26-27; 5:1; 1 Cor. 11:7; James 3:9). (2) There is not one verse in the Bible
which attributes creative power to angels. The ability to create life out of
nothing is an incommunicable attribute of God that distinguishes Him from His
creation. (If creative power is not an incommunicable attribute of God, what
would be?)
Genesis 1:27 Rebuttal
In response to the "us"
and "our" pronouns of Gen. 1:26, Troki appeals to Gen. 1:27: "If
the verb Naasseh, we will make, related to a divine plurality, why do we find
immediately afterwards the singular form, 'And God created man in His image' or
why not, 'and they created man?'" (Troki, p. 46).
The anti-missionary again resorts
to the lamentable hermenutic of pitting Scripture against Scripture. We could
similarly respond, "If God is
strictly a solitary one why did he not say, 'Let me create man in my
image'?" Of course, this pointless polarization would quickly end in a dry
stalemate. However, accepting both brings us to the truth that God is both a
plurality and a unity. In verse 26, God the Father speaks to those of the same
divine nature as Himself namely the Son and possibly the Holy Spirit. In verse
27, God is spoken of as a compound unity.
Interestingly enough, verse 27,
far from disproving our position, marvelously illustrates it. "So God
created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and
female created He them." Within the same verse, man, whom God created in
His image, is spoken of in the singular "created He him [man]" and in
the plural "male and female created He them." This point is further
developed in Gen. 5:2: "In the day that God created man, in the likeness of
God made He him; male and female created He them: and blessed them, and called
their name Adam, in the day they were created."
The conclusion is irresistible.
Just as man and woman can be considered "he" and "them"
(Gen. 1:27) and can be called by the singular name "Adam" (Gen.
5:7-Heb. ah-dahm, a word that refers to one man [2:7] or numerous humans [6:3]),
so, too, can God be referred to as "He" (Gen. 1:27), "us"
and "our" (Gen. 1:26) and can be called by the singular name God (Gen.
1:1) or Yahweh (Deut. 6:4). Jesus is said to be from the bosom of the Father
(John 1:18), and woman from the side of the man (Gen. 2:21-22). In a true sense,
Eve was a part of Adam but was not Adam; and Jesus is a part of the Father while
not being the Father Himself.
Elohim
We do not believe that the Hebrew
word for God, Elohim, when used of Deity, always includes the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. The word Elohim is a plural noun which can have reference to one
particular being or entity, e.g., in Judges 11:24: "Chemosh thy god";
in 1 Sam. 5:7: "Dagon our god" or to more than one, e.g., Exodus 21:6:
"Then his master shall bring him unto the judges (elohim)" (cf.
22:8-9).
One may not always be able to determine whether Elohim has reference to
one or more persons. Only when the context makes this clear should one be
dogmatic.
God to God
Having shown that Elohim can
include more than one person, we now refer to a prophecy that specifically ties
Jesus into the Elohim of Israel. In speaking of the Messiah, David prophesies:
Thy throne, O God, is for ever
and ever: the scepter of thy kingdom is a scepter of righteousness. Thou has
loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, has anointed
thee with the oil of gladness beyond thy fellows.. (Psalm 45:7-8 LXX).
I quote this prophecy from the
Septuagint because the Jewish translations unjustifiably add words to the text
which distort its true meaning. The Jewish translation that I am using for my
primary text states: "Thy throne, which is of God, shall stand for ever and
ever..." Jewish translators have no justification to add "which is
of." These words are not needed for continuity. The context bears out the
straight Hebrew and the Septuagint translation. David, after addressing the
Messiah as God, goes on to say, "Therefore God, thy God, has anointed
thee," clearly showing two that are called God. This prophecy is
specifically applied to Jesus in Hebrews 1:8-9. His God is God the Father (John
20:17). Jesus, being the divine Son of God, is also rightly called God. He was
the one addressed by the Father in Gen. 1:26. His throne shall indeed be forever
and ever (Isa. 9:6).
Yaweh from Yaweh
For thus saith [Yaweh] of Hosts;
for your glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you:...Sing and
rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of
thee, saith the Lord. And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day,
and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt
know that [Yaweh] of hosts hath sent me unto thee (Zech. 2:12;14-15).
Here we find a passage similar to
Psalm 45:6-7. In this instance, we find two being referenced that are called
Yaweh. The one doing the speaking is Yaweh (v.12). He ends His discourse by
saying that once He dwells among the Israelites, they would then recognize that
it was "Yaweh of Hosts [that] sent [him]" (v.15). Yaweh sends another
that is called Yaweh! The one who is sent is the Messiah, who was to come and
live among the Israelites (cf. Gen 19:24).
Singular God
No objection is asserted with
greater force against the Trinity than Deuteronomy 6:4:
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord
our God is one Lord" (Deut. 6:4). Since God is called "one Lord,"
the anti-missionary claims that the concept of a triune God is automatically
invalidated. This is answered in three ways.
1)
The
idea stressed in Deut. 6:4 may be more accurately conveyed by the NJPSV.
"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone." Here the stress
is laid on God being the only true God, in contrast to the false god's the
Israelites were being exhorted not to worship (Deut. 6:14).
2)
As
already stated, I believe that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are a part of God the
Father. Spiritually, and perhaps other ways also, they are indivisible, and as
such, they are considered "one."
3)
Although
the word echad can have reference to one solitary entity, it is also used
to describe the consummate unity of two or more separate and distinct entities:
"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave
unto his wife: and they shall be one [echad] flesh" (Gen 2:24). Here, we
find man and woman being considered, in a spiritual sense, one person in
marriage.
There are countless Scriptures
that speak of God in the singular, but not one that teaches that God (Elohim) is
exclusively a solitary entity. In case one might think that this interpretation
is indigenous only to Christian circles, we present for consideration the
following quote from the Zohar, a Jewish book of mysticism:
Hear, O Israel: Yaweh our God,
Yaweh is one.' Why is there need of mentioning the name of God three times in
this verse? The first Yaweh is the Father above. The second is the stem of
Jesse, the Messiah who is to come from the family of Jesse through David. And
the third one is the Way which is below (meaning the Holy Spirit who shows us
the way) and these three are one.3
The Return of the Shechinah
In his vision, Ezekiel sees the
Shechinah Glory departing from the temple, and then making its trek across the
city. He watches in amazement as it "stood upon the mountain [Mount Olivet]
which is on the east side of the city" (Ezekiel 11:23). Ezekiel then
prophesies the return of the Shechinah to Jerusalem from the eastern gate to
dwell among His people in the Messianic Kingdom.
And , behold, the glory of the God of Israel [the Shechinah] came from the
way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth
shined with his glory (Ezk. 43:2).
Having departed from the Mount of
Olives east of the city, the Shechinah returns to Jerusalem from the same
direction and enters by the eastern gate. Yaweh tells Ezekiel that this gate
must be shut because "[Yaweh] the God of Israel has entered in by
it..." (Ezk. 44:2). The Shechinah is not some mere inanimate presence of
God, it is God Himself. While Yaweh sits on His throne in Heaven, the Shechinah,
also considered "Yaweh the God of Israel," passes through the eastern
gate into Jerusalem! Could the Shechinah be Jesus the Messiah? Regardless of
whether this could be absolutely determined, one thing is certain: Jesus is the
Messiah. Being the Messiah, He holds the name "Yaweh-tsidkenu" (Jer.
23:5). His post-ascension voice was like "the sound of many waters"
(Rev. 1:15). Like the Shechinah, Jesus ascended into heaven from the mount of
Olives! And He is to come back to the same mountain in fulfillment of Bible
prophecy. In an undisputed Messianic passage, Zechariah foretells the triumphal
entry of the Messiah into Jerusalem:
Behold, the day of the Lord
cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather
all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the
houses rifled...Then shall [Yaweh] go forth, and fight against those nations as
when he fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon
the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east...(Zech. 14:1-4 cf.
Job 19:25 where Job, after his resurrection, talks about seeing God his
"Redeemer" standing "upon the earth"). Now when [Jesus] had
spoken these things, while they [His disciples] watched, He was taken up, and a
cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward
heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also
said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus,
who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw
Him go into heaven.' Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called
Olivet...(Acts 1:9-12).