‘Behold, the Lamb of God’s
ide o amnos tou
theou
College Study
16th teaching
11.19.2012
“Theology Proper – God’s Unity”
Turn to Deuteronomy
6:1-9
Our point of focus tonight is there in v.4, where it says: “Hear, O
Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one!”
This one tiny verse is one of the most important passages
to the Jews. It is known as Sh’ma Yisrael,
which translates to Hear, Israel.
This verse was commanding the people of God to listen to its most important
truth. So it came to even be known as the Great Sh’ma.
And the Jews put tremendous emphasis on it. This verse, Deuteronomy 6:4, is the centerpiece,
the core of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services. Therefore, it is
recited twice daily in the synagogue. Indeed, many Jews consider this verse to
form the most important prayer in Judaism there is. It is so important, that
Jews on their death bed say the Sh’ma as their last words. Also, it is one of
the earliest verse taught to Jewish children who are beginning to memorize the
Scriptures.
Why so much emphasis? Why so much importance placed upon
the Sh’ma, on this one tiny verse?
Because this verse proclaims one of the essential truths
about God.
This study is
entitled: “God’s Unity”. It is God’s Unity which is boldly proclaimed in Deu 6:4, to which God called their
attention by commanding them to hear, to listen. And the voice of God carries
on through the centuries, and we here today must listen, must hear the truth
being proclaimed here in v.4.
Theologically, this doctrine of God is known as God’s
Simplicity. For obvious reasons, I didn’t name this study God’s Simplicity. The
word simple has almost a negative
sound to it, doesn’t it? After all, we call someone who is dumb or stupid or
unintelligent simple. We may even
mean that something which is simple
isn’t beautiful for sophisticated, and thus not worthy of our attentions. Or when
we use the word simple, we may mean
something was easy to understand. You see then, our modern idea of simple doesn’t quite fit God.
But theologically, all the word simple means is that something has
no parts. When we speak of the Simplicity of God, we aren’t saying that God
is dumb, we’re saying that God has Perfect Unity, that He has no parts. God is
whole and wholly One. Not even the Persons of the Trinity change that, which is
why we say that Jesus was fully God
and fully man. Jesus could therefore
say “I and the Father are one” in John 10:30. Not even the incarnation of
Christ as a Man changed the fact that God was and is One.
Martin Luther, on this passage in Deuteronomy, wrote: “…we
have clear testimony that Moses aimed to indicate the Trinity or the three
persons in the one divine nature.”
The plain fact is, we worship One God. Our God is one. We
do not have many Gods. We do not even have three Gods. The Scripture has
declared even from the very beginning of the Bible, here in Deuteronomy, that
there is only one God.
This truth separates God from nearly every other religion
in the world. There are only three major religions today which believe there is
only one God. They are: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
The fact that God is one separates Him from all the
pantheon of the Greek gods, from the Roman gods, from the pagan gods of nature,
from the gods of the American Indians, of the Norse, of the Hindus, of the
Japanese and on and on. God is not Baal or Zeus or Amaterasu or Shiva or Baal
or anything else. He is the only God there ever was or ever will be.
Isaiah 45:18,
Almighty God says “I am the LORD, and
there is no other.”
Again in Isaiah,
44:6, God says “Besides Me there is no God.”
This truth of God’s Unity also clarifies to us that God is
not what some others may believe: God is not a force or an abstract idea. God
is not many or among many. God is neither just a concept or force or energy.
God is a Being. And He is One.
But wait a minute? What about God the Father, God the Son
and God the Holy Spirit? Critics of Christianity, like the Jews, have accused
us of playing games here: saying we have only one God and then saying at the
same time that we have three Gods. Even some Christians have come to believe
this, that we don’t worship one God but many Gods.
But Scripturally, this is just not the case. Anyone who
denies that God is One or denies that
God has three Persons is not seeing how God has shown Himself to be in this
book. Next week we’ll talk about the Trinity, we’ll talk about God’s Triunity.
Tonight, however, our topic is solely God’s Unity, the fact that He is One.
Note that this is not just an Old Testament concept, that
God is one. This is not a Jewish idea which the church “abandoned” so it could
“make-up” the doctrine of the Trinity. No, the truth of God’s Oneness, of God’s
Simplicity, is all through Scripture, in both the Old and the New Testaments.
I’ll give you five big lines of evidence that this is a
true doctrine of all of God’s word. We’ve already seen how this truth of God’s
Oneness formed the Sh’ma, the most important prayer in Judaism. Let’s look at
another piece of evidence:
1. First piece of Evidence: The
Hebrew word Echad
In Hebrew Deuteronomy
6:4 reads: Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai
Eloheinu Adonai Ecḥad.
That word Echad is
the word translated into English as one.
But as is the case so many times, we lose a lot of meaning in translating into
English. In Hebrew, the word echad
means one, but it does not mean
singular oneness. If God wanted it to say singular
oneness He would have used the Hebrew word yachid. But it is not yachid.
It is echad. Echad doesn’t mean singular or absolute oneness, it means a
compound oneness.
Now this seems like a weird concept because we don’t often
think about it, but let’s get a better understanding of compound oneness by
seeing how the Bible uses it.
Turn to Genesis 1:5.
It said that the evening and the morning were the first day. They both, the
morning and the evening, together form an echad,
ONE day. That one day had compound unity, not absolute unity. It was a oneness
made of two things.
In the next chapter over, Genesis 2:24, the Bible says “Therefore
a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they
shall become one flesh.” They shall become echad, ONE flesh. Yet they are a man and woman, two beings, two
persons, yet they shall become ONE, echad,
a compound unity.
So when Deuteronomy says the LORD is one, it certainly
means He is only one God, but it also means a compound unity, a clear
indication of the Trinity. In summary: God has plurality of persons within a
unity of substance. The substance is One God, the plurality is three persons
who are each fully God.
But hey, maybe this oneness of God is an Old Testament
concept, still. Oh no. Next, line of evidence…
2. Second piece of Evidence: the
Hebrew word elohim
You’ve probably heard this word before. It’s more familiar
to us than other Hebrews words, like echad.
Elohim is the
Hebrew word which is translated into the English word God. And like the word echad,
elohim carries the meaning of
compound unity, a oneness with plurality in it. This is yet another hint at the
Holy Trinity within the One True God as early as the book of Genesis.
Rabbi Simeon ben Joachi, commenting on the word Elohim:
“Come and see the mystery of the word Elohim; there are three degrees, and each
degree by itself alone, and yet notwithstanding they are all one, and joined
together in one, and are not divided from each other.”
That’s why God could say in Genesis 1:26, “Let Us make
man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” One God could speak among the
persons of the Trinity within Himself. It is truly a mystery, but it is no
contradiction of terms. The Bible has always used compound unity words to
describe God even in His oneness. And this is just another way that shows how
far beyond us God is and how awe-inspiring God is.
3. Third piece of Evidence: God’s
Actuality
Now here we’re going to use a little reasoning. Remember
that a few weeks back, we talked about God’s Pure Actuality, that God is pure
existence without an Potentiality, without any potential for change.
And what cannot change, cannot be divided since being
divided would mean Potentiality, there was the potential to be divided.
Therefore, since God is Purely Actual, Pure Existence and wholly One, God
cannot be divided, since that would mean God could change. A God of Pure
Actuality without Potentiality must be wholly One.
It goes against the fundamental nature of God in His
Actuality to say that He is many gods. God is pure, indivisible and therefore
purely simple, whole, one.
4. Fourth piece of Evidence: The
words of Jesus Christ
Look at Mark
12:28-34.
Jesus placed the utmost importance on this Sh’ma by quoting
Deuteronomy 6! He even bases the
first commandment on the declaration of God’s Unity.
If Jesus believed that God was one that should certainly be
enough. After all, Jesus would be the expert on Himself.
5. Fifth piece of Evidence: The
doctrine of the Early Church
In I Corinthians 8:4,
Paul the apostle wrote: “…we know that an
idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one.”
Again in Ephesians
4:6, Paul the apostle writes that there is “…one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in
you all.”
James in James 2:19
calls it a good thing for us to “…believe
that there is one God”.
Beyond the writers of the New Testament, many other
teachers and church fathers held to the doctrine of God’s Unity.
Clement of Alexandria (circa 150-215AD) said “Nor are any
parts to be predicated of Him. For the One is indivisible…”
Apollinarius (circa 310-390AD) wrote: “The divine spirit…
is one, of single form, single character, single substance, indivisible.”
Augustine (354-430AD) called God “Him whose existence is
simple and indivisible.” There’s a reference to the theological term for God’s
Simplicity.
Martin Luther (1483-1546) wrote “the sacred article of the
holy Trinity teaches us to believe and say that the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit are three distinct persons, yet each person is the one God.”
*So the big question is: what does this all mean to you and
I. It’s a lot of fancy words and theological doctrines, but what’s the
nitty-gritty? What would God have you and I learn from Him tonight to help us
better glorify Him with our lives? How does the doctrine of God’s wholeness,
His oneness, His Unity affect us?
Turn at last to John
17.
In John 17,
we have the recorded words of the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus, as it’s known.
In this prayer near the end of His earthly life and ministry, Christ prayed for
His disciples and then for the coming church and believers, which includes of
course, you and I.
That alone is a remarkable fact that Jesus really prayed
for you and me!
He begins to pray for the future church in John 17:20-23.
How can we apply the doctrine of God’s Unity? Other than
believing that God is One, God also desires that we as the members of His
church be One. God is Himself a perfectly United Being. He desires that we be
united in Him. He not only desired that we be one, that you and I and every
member of the church be united… He not desired it. He prayed to the Father for
our unity.
The church of Jesus Christ is so splintered, so broken and
in need of Him to heal us. Sunday when Pastor Rich was quoting Ephesians 1, he was emphasizing the
many blessings we have from God. It says we have been blessed with every
spiritual blessing, that we have been chosen, that He has adopted us and
accepted us, redeemed us and forgiven our sins according to the riches of His
grace. And among all that blessing, my mind automatically went to where it says
that He “predestined us”. That, after
all, is the big debate verse. That is the verse which churches split over,
which Christians part ways over, the subject of predestination. My mind went
there automatically, because I as a human being am always so caught up in the
debate, in the arguments, in the proving I’m right… so much so that I degraded
all these blessings there in that same passage!
God forgive us! We’ve been so preoccupied with things that
are unimportant that we’ve missed the heart of God, the heart of God which
yearns for our unity. God is not pleased that we win an argument. God is
pleased with unity. God is not pleased with us feeling right. God is pleased
with unity.
So how are we to be united? Let me give you three practical
ways:
1. Knock off the gossip
Proverbs 16:28 says “A perverse man sows strife, and a whisperer
separates the best of friends.”
Gossip
is basically concealed criticism. And gossip has no place in the Christian
church. If you have something negative to say about someone, say it to that
person, that they may learn by it, not to someone else who has nothing to do
with it. Gossip will just tear someone and their reputation to pieces. We often
attack other members of the body of Christ in our privacy with gossip. It
should not be so. Does a body attack itself? Purpose in your heart to avoid
gossip and plead upon the Lord’s mercy and aid to help you to keep from gossip.
If you’re a gossip, repent and work with the Spirit to become an encourager of
others, not a gossip.
2. Love others
Proverbs 10:12 says “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all
sins.”
I Peter 4:8, quoting Proverbs, Peter says
“And above all things have fervent love
for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins.”
Love
covers, after all, love is patience with others and kind to others and suffers
and endures. We need to love each other as Christ loves us. We need to care for
each other, be interested in someone else’s needs, and carry each other’s
burdens and cares. Love unites a church.
This bitterness and this bickering and this arguing between
Christians must end if we’re to be united. Love is commanded of us. Love is a
fruit of the Spirit. Work toward love. Treat others with love. Speak to others
with kindness. By this we’re told that the world will know that we’re true
disciples of God. John 13:34-35 “A new commandment I give unto you, That you
love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this
shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Do you wish to be a disciple of Christ? Do you want to stand out
as a true Christian? Do you want unity? Then love one another. If you have to
bear with someone, then bear with them. Love covers sins.
3. It’s your responsibility
You have a responsibility given by God to be united in His body.
If you’ve got a problem with someone, it’s not your parents, your pastor or
your friends who must bail you out. You deal with it. Unity is your
responsibility.
Romans 12:18, “If it is possible, as much as depends on
you, live peaceably with all men.” Too often we brush off that it depends
on us and too often we believe it isn’t possible to be at peace with someone.
If
I could share an experience in my life which taught me the importance of unity.
My parents were divorced when I was still young and eventually my mom
remarried. For a very long time, I hated my step-dad. Idiot me, I let my
feelings and my thoughts turn into bitterness. I felt as if he had taken my
dad’s place. But what I was doing and how I was acting was slowly destroying
the unity of my family back then, since I lived with my mom. Unity is
important! And we desparately need it in our families, in our church, in our
friendships.
Does this mean we compromise truth? Of course, not. Truth must
be stood for and defended against falsehood. But sometimes you can’t change
someone’s mind, though you can find where you agree.
Ephesians 4:1-6 says
it all, summarizes our whole study tonight:
“I, therefore,
the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to have a walk worthy of the calling with
which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering,
bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called
in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and
Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
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