The Trinity and Light

[Jose]

JR,

You have a remarkable ability to always sidestep the questions being asked of you. Jesus, like all Jewish boys, was taught the Shema. The question, in essence was- Do you (or any one else) think he, or any of those other thousands of children, (and the rabbis teaching them) throughout all those many hundreds of centuries, believed that Deut 6:4 is talking about a multi-personal godhead? I don't believe the thought ever entered theirs minds.

[dizerner]

Hmmm... I can't seem to find the quote of your first sentence in the New Testament. Your second sentence is found there, but when Jesus said it, I think He meant the Father. But I agree that substituting "Trinity" for "God" in this sentence would make sense to a Trinitarian.

That's probably because you read more books about how Moses didn't really hear God than you read Scripture itself. Of course the Shema is in the NT:

29 Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord;
30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' (Mark 12:29-30 NAS)

But even in the Old Testament we find that TWO share the name "Yahweh":

Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Yahweh out of heaven. (Gen 19:24)

According to this verse (taken together with previous ones), the One who met Abraham, the One whom Abraham addressed as "Yahweh," was the means of raining the brimstone and fire. But He did it FROM "Yahweh out of heaven." One Yahweh in heaven, and One on earth. Was the One on earth the Son of God? And the One in heaven the Father? Justin Martyr thought so. In the verse you quoted, Dizerner, the phrase "Yahweh is One" may not mean that Yahweh is a single divine Individual, but it may refer to the same unity to which Jesus referred when He said, "The Father and I are one."

I completely agree with your analysis. I do believe it was a Christophany. I remember reading as a young teenager that the Hebrew word "echad" usually meant a plural unity like a cluster of grapes—what a load of, pardon my French, bullshit that pamphlet turned out to be. When I realized how much it lied to me it made me more wary to double check claims, because echad is most often a simple singular in common Hebrew. However that doesn't mean it can't be a plural unity. And the Zoroastrians, of all people, noted the odd phrasing in the Shema: "Yahweh Elohim Yahweh Echad." Two Yahwehs. One could speculate the middle Elohim could represent the Spirit. And also Adam and Eve were said to be "echad" flesh.

[dizerner]

The question, in essence was- Do you (or any one else) think he, or any of those other thousands of children, (and the rabbis teaching them) throughout all those many hundreds of centuries, believed that Deut 6:4 is talking about a multi-personal godhead? I don't believe the thought ever entered theirs minds.

I don't think the rabbis or Jewish people following the Torah ever conceived it, no, but Christ knew right away. He had to be in his Father's house and about his Father's business, since he always saw what his Father was doing and was one with him. And he knew he was the Messiah "whose going forth is from of old, from everlasting," and who would be the "begetter of the beyond," and he knew he existed "before Abraham was" "with the glory he shared with the Father before the world began." The Spirit taught him all that, since he only had a human mind. Yahweh came and "tabernacled" among us, the fulfillment of all the prophecies, to save his people from their sins—because Yahweh alone treads out the winepress, both in Isaiah and in Revelation, one in judgement on sin in the world and one in judgment on the sin-bearer, the Lamb of God, who shares Yahweh's throne (Heb. 1:8, Rev. 22:3). Only a small handful of people got to see the true essence of who Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration when a tiny bit of his Deity shone through the veil of his flesh. It made Peter so giddy he wanted to stay there forever, and Moses (the Law) and Elijah (the Prophets) stood testimony to his coming. Christ knew he alone was the Way, the Vine, the Life, the Truth, the Resurrection, the beginning and the end, and he bore witness with the Trinity to the things he saw in heaven (John 3:11-12). Paul knew him "no longer after the flesh" and traveled to the third heaven in his heavenly vision he was not disobedient to—and came to learn that all things were created through Christ and for Christ and in him, Christ, all things are upheld. That he laid aside deity to become a servant, not continually grasping his equality with God, but letting it go, for our sake, the sake of his bride. Did Rabbis know all this? If they walked closer with God they might have. Even in Moses day, it took an ungodly person to prophesy of Christ: "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; A star shall come forth from Jacob." Because Israel always resisted God's Holy Spirit, and formed a man-made religion out of Judaism. But the true men of God like Job, knew their Redeemer lived, and begged for an intermediate that could stand between them and God Almighty. "There is no intermediary between us, Who may lay his hand upon us both," he lamented, yet Christ was that connection, if only Job knew "For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all." But Job was found in the end, in Christ, not having a righteousness of his own according to Law, but one according to faith in grace, for God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting Job's trespasses against him. And the baby Christ was called God's very salvation, to be preached to the ends of the earth. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts not only provided salvation for his people but for the ends of the world, when God looked around and saw no man standing in the gap, and with his own arm God wrought our salvation, so that there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved but the name above all names, the king of kings and lord of lords, the light of the world, the bread of heaven, the master of the vineyard, the one coming on the clouds of heaven, the bright and morning star! But again, did the Rabbis know Christ was God? Let's hear the testimony of Scripture:

"If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.”
"The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief corner stone."
"All day long I have stretched out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people."

Today if you hear his voice harden not your heart!

[Jose]

I don't think the rabbis or Jewish people following the Torah ever conceived it, no, but Christ knew right away.

To say that Jesus knew from childhood that he was part of a triune godhead is only speculation.

Jesus commended a Torah following Jewish scribe for his understanding of the Shema. If the scribe had a faulty understanding of who God is, Jesus should have corrected him; instead he praised him. The fact is that Jesus and the scribe both shared the same understanding of the Shema, neither one of them being trinitarian.

The verses at the end of your post have nothing to do with Jesus being God.

[Paidion]

Of course the Shema is in the NT:

29 Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord;
30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' (Mark 12:29-30 NAS)

Sorry about that, Dizerner. I can offer no excuse, but only ask mercy for my 77-year-old brain.

[Homer]

I will throw in a few thoughts for consideration. Been taking BCG treatments aimed at prevention of recurrence of bladder cancer which happens 70% of the time without the treatments. The treatments commonly cause malaise and fatigue, if not worse, and I've definitely had that but today is better. I have paid attention to this thread and been thinking, so here are some comments in no particular order of importance:

1. First of all I do not believe the scriptures are clear enough to make the subject a test of fellowship. Honest seekers of the truth may never agree.

2. I believe that Christians, over the past few hundred years, have come to a somewhat different view of what "person" meant in the ancient creeds than the ancients intended. I consider myself a Trinitarian, yet I stumble over the idea that "persons" equates to "individuals" which to me seems polytheistic.

3. On the other hand, if Jesus is not God but deity, i.e. "god stuff", it seems to me unavoidable to conclude, again, that we have polytheism.

4. I do not believe in the "eternal son-ship" of Jesus. I believe prior to His conception in the virgin Mary Jesus was, as John informs us, The Word. And I believe the Spirit inspired John to use that descriptor as the best of all words to inform us of Jesus' state and relation to the Father prior to His incarnation. He certainly had the descriptor "Son" available and did not use it. If He existed as Son prior to His incarnation why did John not use it?

5. We can not solve the question by means of human analogy. No human relation is analogous to that of God and Word.

6.God is infinite and all powerful and nothing is impossible for Him. I have no quibble with light not being both waves and particles, but only behaving as such. Perhaps this is how the Trinity functions. God behaves as Father, Son, and Spirit simultaneously, even to the extent that there is an appearance to us of three persons.

7. God is, we are informed, omnipresent, everywhere at all times. He is invisible, He is Spirit. If He determined to be present with man (Emmanuel, God with us) how better to do so than as the man Jesus? And if He was incarnated as the man Jesus, He was also still out there, everywhere. And why is it hard to conceive of God The Son praying to and receiving power from God "out there"? Especially since He "emptied himself". Who can say that such a relation in the spirit world does not and can not exist (and continue to exist)?

I hold my ideas non-dogmatically and I'm open to correction and ideas of others, but the Trinitarian position, as best I can understand it, is my fall back position until shown otherwise from the scriptures.

[jriccitelli]

I want to apologize to Darin, you did 'not' allude that I thought, you thought, I was saying, it was salvation issue, I guess I gathered that from Diz's post here: "... as I don't think it's salvific and darin is very right on that". Sorry.

[dizerner]

The verses at the end of your post have nothing to do with Jesus being God.

They are why Israel didn't know Jesus was God.

[dizerner]

Jesus commended a Torah following Jewish scribe for his understanding of the Shema. If the scribe had a faulty understanding of who God is, Jesus should have corrected him; instead he praised him. The fact is that Jesus and the scribe both shared the same understanding of the Shema, neither one of them being trinitarian.

Actually, Jose, that's not quite right.

In one instance we have Jesus stating the commandment and the scribe affirming it. Then we have these intriguing words:

Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” But after that no one dared question Him.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm "not far" from something than I'm actually not there. I'm not in it. This scribe was not in the kingdom of God even after a complete and full affirmation of the Shema to Christ himself. So it seems you are not quite right in your claim that they "both shared the same understanding" because the scribe was missing something vital. If he simply affirmed the Shema, what could that scribe possibly be missing? We get another clue to that in the parallel account in Luke:

So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’” And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”

Here's the real clincher. It's not enough to say the Shema is right, we have to actually live it out in real life. And when we realize we don't really keep it, we have got a serious problem between us and God. Someone has to be our Shema-keeper, to stay in covenant with God. And the Holy Spirit will convict us that we did not love the Lord our God with all our heart today, nor even our neighbor as ourselves. So who do we look to stay in covenant with a God who does not countenance impurity or cannot overlook sin without a sacrifice? Why does this matter? Why does it connect to Jesus being God? Well, I don't think Jesus is in the office of the Father, but I think Jesus is fully divine. Homer wants to make the Word above "impersonal" but that Word is given personal attributes even in preexistence. Jesus wasn't some floaty thought or abstract principle in his preexistence. He was sharing glory. He was face to face. It's Jesus Divinity that makes him the true Covenant-Keeper, the ability to be perfectly righteous on all our behalves and to defeat Satan as a man and to pay the payment of all the sin of whoever believes on him. Jesus connects God and man, because he is a God-man. Jesus connects God and creation because he is both.

If a law had come that could give life, righteousness would be by the law. "Behold I have come, your law is within my heart." The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free.

Let Jesus be your Shema-keeper within and without! God bless! It's been a joy to meditate on these truths.

[Jose]

dizerner,

The scribe's spiritual status is unrelated to the topic at hand. I said that they both shared the same understanding OF WHO GOD IS, as articulated in the Shema. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love YHWH, and the scribe agreed. The thing to notice, though, is that they both spoke of YHWH as someone other than themselves. The scribe used singular personal pronouns when speaking about YHWH, and then Jesus patted him on the back and told him that he spoke wisely. If language means anything, singular personal pronouns indicate single personal beings. If YHWH is not a HE but is actually a plurality of beings, then Jesus failed to enlighten the man with this all important truth.
The common understanding that they shared is that YHWH is single being.