First, it would be useful to consider
what theologians have to say about the Trinity in the Tanakh (Old Testament).
"theologians today are in
agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity, even
though it was customary in past dogmatic tracts .... to cite texts like Genesis
1:26 .... as proof of plurality in God."
The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 15, ed. M. Eliade, c. 1987,
Macmillan Pub. Co., New York
Let’s start with God’s answer to Moses
about who He is.
Exodus 3: 14-15 ASV,
“14 And God said unto Moses, I am that I am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say
unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. 15 And
God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel,
Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my
memorial unto all generations.”
The
Hebrew word translated as “I AM” is אהיה (Ehyeh),
which means “I am what I will be”. The
Hebrew word translated as “Jehovah” is יהוה (Yehovah), which means something like “to
be” or “Eternal One”. So, God is known
as the one who is, He is the eternal one.
The Torah describes God as the father of His
people.
“22 And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus
saith Jehovah, Israel is my son, my first-born:” Exodus 4:22 ASV
Isaiah expands on this idea by explicitly
stating that Jehovah is the Father.
“16 For thou art our Father, though
Abraham knoweth us not, and Israel doth not acknowledge us: thou, O Jehovah,
art our Father; our Redeemer from everlasting is thy name.” Isaiah 63:16 ASV
“8 But now, O Jehovah, thou art our
Father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy
hand.” Isaiah 64:8 ASV
And the Torah explicitly states that Jehovah,
our Father, alone is God and there is none other besides Him. The doctrine that there are two others beside
Jehovah, our Father, directly contradicts the clear statements of Scripture.
“35 Unto thee it was showed, that thou
mightest know that Jehovah he is God; there is none else besides him.” Deuteronomy 4:35 ASV
At the end
of Moses’ life he made a famous declaration about who God is. Deuteronomy 6:4.
“4 Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our
God is one Jehovah”
In Moses’
speech, he makes it very clear that there is one God. The prophet Isaiah expressed it very
beautifully in Isaiah 45:18-22 ASV.
“18 For
thus saith Jehovah that created the heavens, the God that formed the earth and
made it, that established it and created it not a waste, that formed it to be
inhabited: I am Jehovah; and there is none else. 19 I have not
spoken in secret, in a place of the land of darkness; I said not unto the seed
of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I, Jehovah, speak righteousness, I declare things
that are right.
20 Assemble
yourselves and come; draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations:
they have no knowledge that carry the wood of their graven image, and pray unto
a god that cannot save. 21 Declare ye, and bring it forth;
yea, let them take counsel together: who hath showed this from ancient time?
who hath declared it of old? have not I, Jehovah? and there is no God else
besides me, a just God and a Saviour; there is none besides me. 22 Look
unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is
none else.”
There are
many other examples of this.
1 Kings 8:60 ASV
“60 that all the peoples of the earth may
know that Jehovah, he is God; there is none else.”
Nehemiah
9:6 ASV
“6 Thou art Jehovah, even thou alone;
thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth
and all things that are thereon, the seas and all that is in them, and thou
preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.”
Isaiah 43:10 ASV
“10 Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah,
and my servant whom I have chosen; that ye may know and believe me, and
understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there
be after me.”
Isaiah 44:6 ASV
“6 Thus
saith Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts: I am the
first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God.”
Many people claim that because Jesus
also referred to himself as the first and last he must be claiming to be
God. First and last does not necessarily
mean first and last in existence. It can
also refer to total authority over something.
Jesus is called the first and last over those who are resurrected because he was resurrected and is given authority over resurrection (Revelation 1:17-18; 2:8). Saying that Jesus must be God because he uses a similar phrase is a perfect
example of giving priority to ambiguous statements over clear statements like
the one above that clearly states there is no God except for Jehovah, our
Father.
Isaiah 44:8 ASV
“8 Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have I
not declared unto thee of old, and showed it? and ye are my witnesses. Is there
a God besides me? yea, there is no Rock; I know not any.”
Isaiah 45:5-6 ASV
“5 I am Jehovah, and there is none else; besides me
there is no God. I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me; 6 that
they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none
besides me: I am Jehovah, and there is none else.”
It is
difficult to imagine any way that God could possibly articulate better that He
is one person with no other beside Him.
He is a single, indivisible person and not a duality, trinity,
quadrility or anything else except one person with no equal beside Him.
Christian
will, of course, agree that there is one God.
But they redefine the meaning of the word God to mean a plurality of
persons. However, the Old Testament is
very consistent in insisting that there is only one who is God and no other
beside Him. Far from supporting the idea
of the Trinity, it is a plain denial of even the possibility. Never in any of these passages will you find
a statement that this God is three-in-one.
You will only find statements that He is God alone and that there is no
other beside Him. He does not say that
He is God and two others beside him. He
says that He is God alone and there are no others beside Him.
Jesus said that the greatest commandment begins with the declaration that God is One, not three in one:
Mark 12:29-30,
Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Trinitarians will often claim that the word translated as “one”, which is “echad”, indicates a compound unity. The primary verse they turn to in order to justify this is Genesis 2:24. However, when we look at the verse in context, we can see their argument fall apart.
Genesis 2:21-24 ASV
Jesus’s conversation didn’t end there. The scribe he was talking to clearly stated that he understood the word “echad” to mean that God consisted of one single person, the Father alone.
Jesus said that the greatest commandment begins with the declaration that God is One, not three in one:
Mark 12:29-30,
“29 Jesus answered, The first is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one: 30 and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength”.
The most important commandment, according to Jesus, begins with the knowledge that God is ONE.Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Trinitarians will often claim that the word translated as “one”, which is “echad”, indicates a compound unity. The primary verse they turn to in order to justify this is Genesis 2:24. However, when we look at the verse in context, we can see their argument fall apart.
Genesis 2:21-24 ASV
21 And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and he took one (echad) of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof: 22 and the rib, which Jehovah God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And the man said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one (echad) flesh.
When we look at verse 21 we see that “echad” is used there to indicate one single rib. It is not a unity of multiple ribs. Throughout the Tanakh “echad” is usually used to simply indicate “one” or “first”. Using it to describe a unity is the exception, not the rule. In reality “echad” acts very much like the English word “one”. It in no way, shape or form implies a unity. It can be used to describe a unity, but only if the context clearly indicates that.Jesus’s conversation didn’t end there. The scribe he was talking to clearly stated that he understood the word “echad” to mean that God consisted of one single person, the Father alone.
32 And the scribe said unto him, Of a truth, Teacher, thou hast well said that he is one; and there is none other but he: 33 and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is much more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices. Mark 12:32-33 ASV
If “echad” really indicated that God was a unity of three persons, Jesus should have corrected the scribe. Instead, he believed the scribe answered correctly and told the scribe he was on the path to the Kingdom of Heaven.
34 And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that durst ask him any question. Mark 12:34 ASV
When Trinitarians say that “echad” in Deuteronomy 6:4 indicates that God is a unity of three persons, they are saying that Jesus was wrong. They are absolutely refusing to believe Jesus. They prefer to listen to the church leaders instead of Jesus.
Trinitarians
will point out that God teaches us a little at a time because we can’t handle
everything at once. They say that Jesus
didn’t go around saying, “I am God”, because it would have been too dangerous
(we will discuss the times the Jews tried to stone Jesus later to see if he was
actually implying that he was God). The
problem with this argument is that the Old Testament specifically says that
there is one God and no other besides Him.
Nowhere in Moses’, or any of the other prophets’ declarations about God,
do we see them explaining that this one God is a plurality of persons.
In other
words, it was God who, through His messengers, created the situation where it
would have been dangerous for Jesus to say, “I am God”. Therefore, anyone who would reject Jesus for
saying, “I am God”, would have been doing so because of what God said to Moses
and the prophets. Obedience to the Bible
would lead them to reject the idea that God is three-in-one. Why would God set up a situation where those
who strictly adhered to the prophets’ teachings would find it difficult to
accept Jesus as God? Why wouldn’t God
have mentioned somewhere that this one God was in three persons, which would
have made it easy for those who obeyed the teachings of the prophets to accept
Jesus as God?
Now
we need to look at what the Old Testament says about God’s form.
What did the
Israelites see when God revealed Himself to them? Exodus 24:9-12 ASV.
“9 Then
went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of
Israel: 10 and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under
his feet as it were a
paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were the very heaven for clearness. 11 And
upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: and they beheld
God, and did eat and drink.
12 And Jehovah said
unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee the
tables of stone, and the law and the commandment, which I have written, that
thou mayest teach them.”
Moses
wanted to see God to understand Him better.
God said that Moses could not see his face and live, but God would
reveal His back to Moses. But, we don’t
get a description of a form; we get a description of God’s character.
Exodus
33:18-23 ASV
“18 And he said, Show me, I pray thee, thy glory. 19 And
he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and will proclaim the name
of Jehovah before thee; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and
will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 And he said, Thou
canst not see my face; for man shall not see me and live. 21 And
Jehovah said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon the
rock: 22 and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by,
that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand
until I have passed by: 23 and I will take away my hand, and
thou shalt see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”
Exodus
34:1-7 ASV
“1And Jehovah said unto Moses, Hew thee two
tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon the tables the words
that were on the first tables, which thou brakest. 2 And be
ready by the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present
thyself there to me on the top of the mount. 3 And no man shall
come up with thee; neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount;
neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount. 4 And
he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in
the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as Jehovah had commanded him, and
took in his hand two tables of stone. 5 And Jehovah descended
in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah. 6 And
Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful
and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth; 7 keeping
lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and
that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, upon the third and
upon the fourth generation.”
Moses
commented on what people actually see when they encounter God in Deuteronomy 4:9-19,
35 ASV
9 Only
take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things
which thine eyes saw, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy
life; but make them known unto thy children and thy children’s children; 10 the
day that thou stoodest before Jehovah thy God in Horeb, when Jehovah said unto
me, Assemble me the people, and I will make them hear my words, that they may
learn to fear me all the days that they live upon the earth, and that they may
teach their children. 11 And ye came near and stood under the
mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the heart of heaven, with
darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. 12 And Jehovah spake unto
you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of words, but ye saw no
form; only ye heard a voice. 13 And he declared unto you
his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even the ten commandments; and
he wrote them upon two tables of stone. 14 And Jehovah commanded
me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that ye might do them in
the land whither ye go over to possess it.
15 Take ye therefore
good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of form on the day that Jehovah
spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire; 16 lest
ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image in the form of any figure,
the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any beast
that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flieth in the
heavens, 18 the likeness of anything that creepeth on the
ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth; 19 and
lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun and the
moon and the stars, even all the host of heaven, thou be drawn away and worship
them, and serve them, which Jehovah thy God hath allotted unto all the peoples
under the whole heaven.”
……………………………………………….
35 Unto thee it was showed, that thou
mightest know that Jehovah he is God; there is none else besides him.
In
this passage Moses completely denounced the possibility of the incarnation or
that God is a trinity.
One
of the great truths of the Old Testament is that God has no physical form. Moses’s argument against worshipping idols
wasn’t simply that an idol is not actually God.
Rather, Moses argued that an idol couldn’t even look like God because
God wasn’t visible. If it is possible to
see something, then it isn’t God. It is
the act of worshipping something with a visible form that is idolatry. And God, through Moses, made the Jews the
eternal witnesses of this truth (verse 9).
Would someone who only had the Old Testament, like the Jews of Jesus’
time, accept the idea of someone being God in the flesh? Why would anyone who had studied Moses’s
teachings ever believe that this person we can see and touch is God? By Moses’s logic, Jesus can’t be God because
it is possible to make an idol of him.
This
makes it clear that, when the people encountered God, they saw no physical
form. The Bible speaks about God’s body
metaphorically, but He does not have a body like us. One of the concepts surrounding the
incarnation is that God had to take on the form of a man so that we could
understand God more.
However,
Moses heavily emphasized the fact that the Israelites saw no physical
form. For Moses, it was vital for the
people to understand that God has no physical form. The reason he gave was to make sure they
would never create a statue of Him. How
does this relate to the doctrine of the incarnation? How does this reflect on the Christian
practice of creating statues of Jesus and saying that he is God?
This
commentary from Moses provides some of the underlying reasoning for the Second
Commandment. It is simply not possible
to make an image of a God that can’t be seen.
Therefoe, any idol we make is an image of a false god.
The
Catholic Church understood that the docrine of the Incarnation contradicted
what the Old Testament said about God, so they reasoned that the Second
Commandment was no longer valid.
In
the Catechism we read:
2129 The divine injunction included the
prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man. Deuteronomy
explains: “Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb
out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven
image for yourselves, in the form of any figure.…” It is the absolutely transcendent God who
revealed himself to Israel. “He is the all,” but at the same time “he is
greater than all his works.” He is “the
author of beauty.”
2130 Nevertheless, already in the Old
Testament, God ordained or permitted the making of images that pointed
symbolically toward salvation by the incarnate Word: so it was with the bronze
serpent, the ark of the covenant, and the cherubim.
2131 Basing itself on the mystery of
the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified
against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons— of Christ, but also of the
Mother of God, the angels, and all the saints. By becoming incarnate, the Son
of God introduced a new “economy” of images.
2132 The Christian veneration of
images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed
, “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype ,” and “whoever
venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it.” The honor paid to sacred images is a
“respectful veneration,” not the adoration due to God alone: Religious worship
is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under
their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement
toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose
image it is.[1]
I
must point out that the Ark of the Covenant and cheribum were never
worshipped. Also, Hezekiah destroyed the
bronze serpent when the people began to venerate it (2 Kings 18:4).
Hezekiah permitted only the worship of God, not the bronze serpent.
Now,
I do need to be honest and mention Ezekiel’s vision of the throne of God. Ezekiel does initially use the word “man”
when describing appearance of the figure on the throne. However, when he goes into more detail, he
describes the figure as having the appearance of fire. This lines up with Moses’ description of God
speaking out of the fire. Because of
this, I believe that he was not saying that God actually looked like a man, but
was just trying to find words to describe the indescribable. You can judge for yourself.
Ezekiel
1:26-28 ASV
“26 And above the firmament that was over
their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire
stone; and upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of
a man upon it above. 27 And I saw as it were glowing metal, as
the appearance of fire within it round about, from the appearance of his loins
and upward; and from the appearance of his loins and downward I saw as it were
the appearance of fire, and there was brightness round about him. 28 As
the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the
appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the
likeness of the glory of Jehovah. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I
heard a voice of one that spake.”
Related
to God’s form is whether or not He is a man.
There are three texts that are important here. The first is
Numbers
23:19 ESV.
19 God is
not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his
mind. Has he said, and will he not do
it? Or has he spoken, and will he not
fulfill it?
The
second is 1 Samuel 15:29 ESV.
29 And also
the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he
should have regret.
The third is Hosea 11:9.
9 I will not
execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for
I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter
into the city.
The Old
Testament clearly states that God is not a man or a son of man. However, this doesn’t necessarily preclude
the possibility of God changing into a man.
Is that something that a reader of the Old Testament would
consider? We read in
Malachi 3:6
ASV
6 “For I,
Jehovah, change not; therefore ye, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.”
Here we have
a statement that says God does not change.
This would seem to indicate that He would not change to become a
man. But, how do we take into account
things like God’s visit to Abraham in Genesis 18?
This
is a difficult passage which has caused a lot of discussion and
controversy. Since we are discussing God
in the Old Testament right now, I will present one interpretation, which is
quite different from the way Christians interpret it.
This
interpretation is based on the fact that the subject of this chapter is
hospitality and there are not direct statements of who or what God is. Therefore, it should be interpreted in the
light of clear statements about God, such as the ones above that say God has no
physical form. The passage that makes a
clear statement about God (Deuteronomy 4) should determine how we interpret the
passage that makes no such statements (Genesis 18).
According
to one Jewish interpretation, God was comforting Abraham in verse 1 as Abraham
recovered from his circumcision. He then
looked up and saw three men. He stopped
conversing with God and ran to meet the three men. According to the Jewish Talmud, these three
were Michael, Gabriel and Raphael (an angel named in the Apocrypha). This means that the conversation should be
interpreted something like this.
Genesis
18:1-23 ASV
1
And Jehovah appeared
unto him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the
day;
God visits with Abraham before the
three angels arrive.
2 and he lifted up his eyes and looked,
and, lo, three men stood over against him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet
them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the earth, 3 and
said, My lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray
thee, from thy servant: 4 let now a little water be fetched,
and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: 5 and I
will fetch a morsel of bread, and strengthen ye your heart; after that ye shall
pass on: forasmuch as ye are come to your servant. And they said, So do, as
thou hast said. 6 And Abraham hastened into the tent unto
Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and
make cakes. 7 And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf
tender and good, and gave it unto the servant; and he hasted to dress it. 8 And
he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before
them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.
Abraham has prepared enough food for
quite a few people. This would make sense if others from Abraham’s camp joined
in welcoming the visitors. One question
worth considering is, did the angels themselves eat the food, or was it only
the people in general who ate? There are
other texts that indicate Angels refuse earthly food (Judges 6:18-21; Judges
13:15-16). Perhaps these angels also
refused to eat and that detail was left.
This happened in other Biblical passages. For example, Luke indicates Mary and Joseph
returned to Nazareth when Mary’s 40 day purification was finished after Jesus’s
birth (Luke 2:22-39) while Matthew indicates they remained in Bethlehem until
the wise men arrived, then fled to Egypt, then returned to Nazareth.
9 And they said unto him, Where is Sarah
thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent. 10 And he said, I
will certainly return unto thee when the season cometh round; and, lo, Sarah
thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard in the tent door, which was behind
him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, and well
stricken in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. 12 And
Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have
pleasure, my lord being old also? 13 And Jehovah said unto
Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child,
who am old? 14 Is anything too hard for Jehovah? At the set
time I will return unto thee, when the season cometh round, and Sarah shall
have a son. 15 Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for
she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.
The rabbis interpret Genesis 21:12, “in all that Sarah hath said unto thee,
hearken unto her voice” to mean that she was a prophetess. So, she heard what God said to Abraham.
16 And the men rose
up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring
them on the way. 17 And Jehovah said, Shall I hide from Abraham
that which I do; 18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a
great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in
him? 19 For I have known him, to the end that he may command
his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of
Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice; to the end that Jehovah may bring
upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. 20 And Jehovah
said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is
very grievous; 21 I will go down now, and see whether they have
done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not,
I will know.
22 And the men turned from thence, and
went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before Jehovah.
Notice, it says the men went to Sodom
while God remained with Abraham. It
doesn’t say only two of the men went to Sodom.
23 And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt
thou consume the righteous with the wicked?
The
Talmud states that Michael’s task was to inform Sarah of Isaac’s birth, so he
returned to heaven and did not accompany Gabriel and Raphael to Sodom. This is why only two angels appear in Sodom.
There
is some difficulty in harmonizing Genesis 18, which seems to many people to
indicate that God appeared to Abraham in physical form, and Deuteronomy 4,
which emphatically states that God has no physical form. I am not entirely convinced that the above
interpretation of Genesis 18 is the correct one. But, I am sure that the method used at
arriving at that interpretation is better than used by most Christians.
Another
interpretation, that I feel is a little bit stronger is this. The Bible sometimes describes an angel doing
something, but states that it is Jehovah doing it. One prime example is Judges 6:11-21. The story makes it very clear that Gideon is
talking to an angel, but several times it describes the angel’s speech as if
Jehovah is speaking.
11 And the angel of
Jehovah came, and sat under the oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto
Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress,
to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of Jehovah
appeared unto him, and said unto him, Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of
valor. 13 And Gideon said unto him, Oh, my lord, if Jehovah is
with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where are all his wondrous works
which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not Jehovah bring us up from Egypt?
but now Jehovah hath cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian. 14 And
Jehovah looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and save Israel from
the hand of Midian: have not I sent thee? 15 And he said unto
him, Oh, Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is the poorest
in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house. 16 And
Jehovah said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the
Midianites as one man. 17 And he said unto him, If now I have
found favor in thy sight, then show me a sign that it is thou that talkest with
me. 18 Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee,
and bring forth my present, and lay it before thee. And he said, I will tarry
until thou come again.
19 And Gideon went
in, and made ready a kid, and unleavened cakes of an ephah of meal: the flesh
he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out unto him
under the oak, and presented it. 20 And the angel of God said
unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes, and lay them upon this rock,
and pour out the broth. And he did so. 21 Then the angel of Jehovah
put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and
the unleavened cakes; and there went up fire out of the rock, and consumed the
flesh and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of Jehovah departed out of his
sight. Judges 6:11-21 ASV
The
story of Abraham’s visitors suggests this possibility because it describes
Jehovah as saying that He will go down to Sodom, but the next chapter clearly
states that it was angels that went to Sodom.
So, if only two of the men left Abraham and one of them stayed talking
with Abraham, it really could have been only an angel that was talking with
Abraham even though the story describes Abraham talking with Jehovah.
The
question is should this story, which does not make any direct statements about
the nature of God, alter our interpretation of Deuteronomy 4, which emphasizes
God having no physical form? Or, should
the clear statements about the nature of God tell us how to interpret Genesis
18, which is essentially a story about hospitality? Which is the better exegesis?
Judaism has always taught that God is one
person. God knew that the Jews would
encounter many new ideas about God, including the idea that there were two
others besides Jehovah, our Father,
who is God, and one of these has a form and became a man and was a man walking
around who eventually died. God knew
that one-day people would claim that we must worship this man Jesus in addition
to Jehovah, our
Father. What does the Bible say about
anyone who would bring new ideas about who God is that were different than
those taught by Moses?
Trinitarians may say that they are still
worshipping the God of Abraham, even if it is a different concept of God, and,
therefore, they are not worshipping another God. One problem in our society is identity
theft. If someone claims to be someone
else, the people that have known them can still be certain that it is not that
person. How? They have known the real person and can
identify them. Similarly, Moses and the
Children of Israel encountered the real God at Mount Sinai. Moses reminded the people of the basic
qualities of the real God so they could always identify the real God. The entire
Jewish nation witnessed the True God and they and their descendants were
commissioned by God as eternal witnesses of who God is (Deuteronomy 4:9). If someone came along and said they also
worship the true God, the Jews can compare the basic qualities this other group
are using to describe God and identify if they are describing the same true
God. Moses described God as Jehovah, our
Father, who is ONE with no others besides Him.
He is not a man or a son of man (born a man) and has no form that we can
see. Incidentally, Muslims also describe
God as ONE without partners, who has no body and is not a man nor was ever born
a man. They use the Arabic word, Allah,
which is simply the Arabic word for “God”.
It’s a different language from Hebrew, so there are different words, but
the fundamental description is consistent. Different languages will naturally
have different words. We need to look at
the description to see if it is consistent.
What was the advice that God gave the Jews
for dealing with anyone who said we shouldn’t just worship one person, with no
others beside Him, who has no form and is not a man or a son of man (born a
man)? God knew that many people would
come along with many concepts of God including those who say that, in addition
to the Father, we should worship two others and one of them has a form and is
this man and son of man. Did God tell
them to examine the evidence and see if these people are presenting the Jews
with a fuller understanding of God?
6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy
son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, that is as thine
own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy
fathers; 7 of the gods of the peoples that are round about
you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from
the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; 8 thou
shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity
him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: 9 but
thou shalt surely kill him; thy hand
shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all
the people. 10 And thou shalt stone him to death with stones,
because he hath sought to draw thee away from Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 11 And all Israel shall
hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is in the
midst of thee.
12 If thou shalt hear tell concerning one of thy
cities, which Jehovah thy God
giveth thee to dwell there, saying, 13 Certain base fellows are
gone out from the midst of thee, and have drawn away the inhabitants of their
city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known; 14 then
shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be
truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in the midst of
thee, 15 thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city
with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein and
the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. 16 And thou
shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and
shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, unto
Jehovah thy God: and it shall be a heap for ever; it shall not be built again. 17 And
there shall cleave nought of the devoted thing to thy hand; that Jehovah may turn
from the fierceness of his anger, and show thee mercy, and have compassion upon
thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers; 18 when
thou shalt hearken to the voice of Jehovah thy God, to keep all his commandments which
I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of Jehovah thy God.
Deuteronomy 13:6-18 ASV
[1] U.S. Catholic
Church (2012-11-28). Catechism of the Catholic Church: Second Edition (Kindle
Locations 19703-19729). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
