The Oneness of God

I humbly request that each of you read through this entire writing to get the full picture of what I am trying to present. If you simply read a part here or a part there you will miss the whole picture that I am hoping to present to you. In no way do I intend to present the entire subject, but rather an overview of what we stand for. I don’t pretend to understand every aspect about God, to do so to me would be the height of arrogance. While knowing God is not subjective to each of us personally (he is the true reality and there is only one proper way to comprehend his reality) he does reveal himself to us in a process throughout our life. We all must be open to correction from the Scripture and the unction of the Holy Spirit. My hope for all who read this and myself as well is that each of us would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit working on our conscience.

As bible believers we hold to scripture as the final authority not the creeds nor confessions of Christendom.

While the majority of Christian theologians focus on and seek to maintain the threeness of God as most important we want to focus on what God declares to be the greatest commandment, his oneness or unity. These are the words of Jesus and if there is any proper confession about who God is this is it, “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.” This is the first and greatest command of the law and the greatest and first command that Jesus gives to us. God is one. He does not say God is three persons in one essence. Secondly, those who hold to the trinity should know that there is no where in Scripture that God is spoken of as a trinity of three persons. This is an ancient word that was used to describe the various triumvurate gods and godesses within various pagan systems of worship.

We want to define God as Scripture defines him and not through philosophy. Unfortunately, after the death of the apostles the church began to gradually drift away from the proper understanding of the oneness of God towards a Greek philosophical one.

The confession that God is three distinct persons is none other than tri-theism, the belief in three gods. The trinity seeks to maintain the oneness of God by stating that he is one essence or ousia. However, myself, my wife and my daughter each are made up of the same essence or ousia, flesh, bones and blood. We are still three persons and to confess that this is what God is is a belief in three gods.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are never spoken of as three persons. We will bear this out scripturally to properly understand the relationship between Father and Son, but the threeness of God is in his manifestations of himself. During the first 300 years of the church there was a gradual departure from Hebrew thought to Greek philosophical thought. The Greeks always sought to understand God inside of himself, but the Hebrews always sought to understand God in his manifestation to mankind. The Greeks separate knowledge from relationship, the Hebrews viewed knowledge as intimacy with the object of knowledge. Hence, sexual intercourse with ones wife was to “know” her. God is not known to us inside of himself, he is known as he is revealed to us in time/space. Thus, we conclude that Father, Son and Spirit are three various ways God manifested himself to mankind.

God is One Person According to Scripture

Notice as you read scripture that God is spoken of as a singular pronoun thousands upon thousands of times. If when the writers of scripture were referring to God and they truly believed he was three persons would they not refer to God as they, them, their, we, us, our rather than I, me, mine, my, etc. Certainly, there are several times that God speaks as us, however, when you as one person speak and you say “us” clearly you are speaking of yourself and someone who is not yourself. When God says us he is speaking to someone who is NOT God.

Here is Galatians 3:20 from the Amplified Bible, “Now a go-between (intermediary) has to do with and implies more than one party [there can be no mediator with just one person]. Yet God is [only] one Person [and He was the sole party in giving that promise to Abraham. But the Law was a contract between two, God and Israel; its validity was dependent on both.” God is only one person not three. The entire scripture bears this out.

The truth about baptism bears this truth out. Matthew 28:19 says, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” God is spoken of as one singular name. There are not three names here, there is one. There are three titles, Father, Son and Spirit, but one name. What is that one name that the Lord Jesus tells us about? Jesus told them to baptize in the singular name of the Father, Son and Spirit. What is that name? Notice, the obedience of Peter in Acts 2:38, “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” The NAME of the Father, Son and Spirit is Jesus Christ. There are three manifestations of God in that one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one person of God manifest in human flesh. (1 Timothy 3:16)

John 14:9, “Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?” Here we find out that the Son is the visible manifestation of the Father. When you see the Son you are seeing the Father manifested visibly. He is “the image of the invisible God” and “the express image of his substance.” (Col. 1:15, Heb. 1:3) “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” John 1:18. “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 1 Timothy 1:17. No man has seen God in himself at any time for he is invisible. God in himself is Spirit for John 4:24 declares that God is a Spirit. That is God’s substance or essence. Ephesians 4:4 tells us there is one Spirit. There is one invisible God, whom no man has seen at any time, he is one substance and that substance is one Spirit. God within himself cannot be seen nor comprehended by mankind for “in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) However, this invisible God chose to create this world and mankind as well as relate to mankind in a way that we can understand. What love and grace to condescend to us so that we could know him even though we are sinners.

So this God who is one Spirit, covers all space and is invisible, no man has seen him at any time nor can you see him chose to condescend to reveal himself. This is where the unfolding and condescending of God comes in. God chose to limit himself in such a way that he could be seen.

Logos

Proverbs 8:22-24, “The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.”

Before there was time or even an atom, there was nothing but God. How he existed and what was there we do not know. He created everything out of nothing. Prior to anything being created God sent forth his thought or logos from himself. When this thought was expressed it became logos. Prior to creation God’s wisdom was IN himself. Just before creation he brought forth his logos, which was the Son of God prefigured in order to limit himself and manifest himself inside of and to his creation. The word prefigured means to picture beforehand or to announce by type. In other words, the item you are speaking of does not yet exist, but you are announcing it prior to its arrival.

God’s wisdom or word are not a separate being from himself, but the logos is the limitation of the Father to a form by which he can be seen and understood. No man knows the Father save the Son and to whomsoever the Son reveals him. (Matthew 11:27) The Logos that went out of God was the Son prefigured. That is, the Logos showed forth what Jesus was after his birth, he is the revelation of the Father, the visible expression of God. As I said previously, you cannot say that God’s reason or wisdom is a separate person from him, it is simply his body, his means of limiting himself to a form that can be understood. The Son is the delimitation of the Father. The Father is the eternal, invisible God and the Son is the self-limitation of the Father to a body that could be seen and understood.

If the Logos is the prefiguration of the Son does this mean that there are two persons of God. As I stated previously, the wisdom of God is not a separate person from the Father. It is the self-limitation of the Father into a body or a form by which he can be seen. Your body is not a separate person from you any more than your thought is. As your body and soul are two so is the Father and his logos. The Father is like unto the soul and the logos is like unto the body whereby the soul is seen.

As stated previously, the Spirit of God cannot be separated from God because there is one Spirit not two or three. Jesus said, “God is a Spirit.” The Spirit of God is also referred to as the “power of the Highest” in Luke 1:35. God’s power is not a distinct person from him.

There are several events in the life of Jesus that speak volumes to us about the proper understanding of who the Son is.

To be continued…

Birth of Jesus

Baptism of Jesus

Father and Son