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THE ONE TRUE
GOD Biblical
Unitarian faith in the Father of Jesus as the One who alone is truly God, is
not new. The whole of
the Old Testament speaks of this one God in unequivocal terms. THERE IS NO
OTHER. (Deuteronomy 4:35 & Isaiah 45:5) This one true
God is revealed as the eternally self-existent being who planned the whole of
creation for inheritance by His HUMAN Son. This human Son
is Jesus. He is mentioned often, never as already existing, but always as one
who is yet to be BORN. Significantly, He is THE MAN who will be the
fulfillment of promises made by God to specific people, (Eve, Abraham, and
David), about the future work of a direct descendant in their blood line. Nowhere in the
Old Testament is Jesus spoken of as a then existing personality. Nor is there
any mention of Jesus as part of a "tri-une God". The concept of the
Trinity is totally foreign to the Old Testament. God is ONE, and
God is self-existent. God is NOT A MAN. Nor is He the Son of Man. (Numbers 23:19) Jesus, however,
is not self-existent. His existence is derived from God in fulfillment of
promises made by God, that He would be both Son of God and Son of Man ......
and since God is neither of those things, Jesus therefore cannot be God. The distinct
separate personalities of God and Jesus, the future existence
and work of Jesus, and the subordinate nature of the relationship of Jesus to
God, are all prophesied by David in Psalm 110:1"The
LORD (Yahweh) said unto my lord (adoni), sit at my
right hand until I make your enemies your footstool". In this Psalm
Jesus is NOT Yahweh. He is someone else. Yahweh, who
alone is God, would speak to this other lord at some time in the future,
issuing an invitation to assume the important, but definitely subordinate,
role as God's chief deputy ...... the "right hand man". JESUS AND THE
GOD OF MOSES Moses was not a
Trinitarian! The faith of
Moses in one God only, (not three, or three-in-one) is expressed, clearly and
unmistakably, in the Shema "Hear O Israel: the LORD our God is one
LORD; and you shall worship the LORD your God with all your heart, and with
all your soul, and with all your might."(Deuteronomy 6:4-5) Although Moses
has much to say about Jesus, it is NEVER that Jesus is YAHWEH, the one LORD. JESUS AND THE
GOD OF CREATION The faith of
Moses in One God is older than Moses. It dates back to creation. It is this One
God who Moses wrote about as the Creator of the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1) He is the one
who said "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, ..... and
let them have dominion ..... over all the earth."(Genesis 1:26) It is sometimes
claimed here, by Trinitarians, that the word, "us", reveals God as more
than one . However this is not logical at all. Nor does it make any
statement at all, about Jesus as a person then existing as part of a tri-une
God. What it does tell us, is that God was speaking to others
who were present. That there were
others present when God laid the foundation of the earth, and the identity of
those others, is revealed in Job 38:7.
They are the "sons of God" ..... the angels. The God who
speaks in Genesis, to those others, is the ONE who Moses declared to be God
alone. In other writings of Moses it becomes clear that Jesus cannot be
present at the creation, either as the speaker or a hearer. He is at the centre
of the creation plan to make man, but not then personally in existence. In this WORD,
spoken at the beginning, the One True God declared his purpose to BECOME the
Father of Jesus. Adam was only
the starting point. It is Jesus who was the primary goal of God's plan in
creation. It is the MAN, Jesus, for whom all creation was made by His
Father. It is the MAN,
Jesus, who bears the full image and likeness of the One God who is His
Father. It is the MAN
Jesus, who is the one through whom all other men will receive from God, the
promised dominion over all the earth. JESUS AND THE
GOD OF ADAM AND EVE Moses wrote
about The One True God as the God of Adam and Eve. He is the God
who created them and placed them under law to learn His likeness through
obedience. When they tried
to steal that impossible short cut to the likeness of God, and through
disobedience, incurred the death penalty, the One True God became a Divine
Saviour, by promising a future human saviour. God's provision
for their salvation would be a descendant of Eve, who would win the ultimate
victory over sin. (Genesis 3:15) It is the MAN,
Jesus, who became this descendant. JESUS AND THE
GOD OF ABRAHAM Moses wrote
that the One True God, who appeared to him at the burning bush, revealed
Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Exodus 3:6) By this, He is
identified as the God who made promises to Abraham which are the foundation
of our own New Testament faith in Jesus. The central
theme of God's promises to Abraham, is the FUTURE "seed of
Abraham", the Messiah, through whom they would be fulfilled. The God of
Abraham is the one who promised that a descendant of Abraham would bless all
families of the earth. It is the MAN, Jesus, who is that descendant, through
whom all who share the faith of Abraham are blessed by being by turned from
their sins. (Acts 3:25-26) The God of
Abraham is the one who promised that Abraham and his descendant would inherit
the earth as an everlasting possession. It is the MAN, Jesus, who is this
promised descendant. It is through Jesus that all others who share the faith
of Abraham also become his true spiritual heirs , and with
Jesus, inherit that everlasting dominion over the earth. JESUS AND THE
GOD OF DAVID This same One
True God is the one who promised David that one of his descendants would sit
on the throne of David for ever. To David, God
also revealed that this FUTURE king, not yet born, (for how else could he be
David's descendant) would also be GOD'S OWN SON. "I will be his father and he shall be my son." (2 Samuel 7:14) In recognition
of the promise that this future king would also be Son of God, David
prophesied about him, calling him lord, (but NOT Yahweh). Thus he declared
that his descendant would be subordinate to God, but superior to David. It is Jesus,
who is both Son of David and Son of God. JESUS AND THE
GOD OF ISAIAH Isaiah speaks
clearly of the distinction between the MAN, Jesus, and the God who stands
alone. For Isaiah, God
is the LORD, the one who Moses declared to the One True God. There is no
other. (Isaiah 43:10-14, & Isaiah 44:8, & Isaiah
45:5-7) He is the God
who speaks the word which will stand for ever. (Isaiah
40:8) He is the LORD,
(the Yahweh of Moses), who is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of
the earth. (Isaiah 40:28) He is the God
who promises the coming of the man who will be the future Saviour, Priest and
King. (The Messiah). Isaiah speaks
often of Jesus. The word of God which stands for ever, is spoken about Jesus. In Isaiah 9:6-7, Jesus is described as a future
son of the Jewish race. This Jewish son is the one who will sit on David's
throne, (and will therefore be the one promised as Son of David and also Son
of God.) Because he will be the Son of God, he will bear the names and titles
of God, which rightly also belong to a Son. In Isaiah 53, Jesus is revealed as the MAN who
would become the suffering Saviour, dying to bear the penalty for the sins of
all who accept His sacrifice. In this role He
reveals the arm of the LORD but is not himself the LORD. (Isaiah 53:1) As the sin
bearer, upon whom the LORD has laid our iniquities, he is the LORD'S agent in
our salvation but is not himself the LORD. (Isaiah
53:6) As the man in
whose hand the will of the LORD is to prosper, He is distinct and separate
from God. (Isaiah 53:10) He is not God,
but the servant of God. (Isaiah 53:11) And because of
His victorious sacrificial role as the human AGENT of the Divine Saviour, he
is to be highly exalted. (Isaiah 53:12) MESSIAH is a
Hebrew word meaning "anointed". It is the direct equivalent of the
Greek and English "Christ". In Isaiah 61, Jesus is prophesied as the
future Messiah, the LORD'S anointed one. The Lord GOD, (Yahweh, who is alone
is God) will anoint Jesus for the work of salvation. It is the
anointing by the Spirit of God, which declares him to be God's MESSIAH. He is
the promised human King and Priest after the order of Melchizedek, anointed
for His role by the Spirit of God. As Messiah he is sent by God (Isaiah 61:1). Since he is sent by God, he
cannot himself be the One True God. CONCLUSION We have touched
only a few of the major references, from a few writers of the Old Testament. The other
writers are uniformly agreed. The LORD is
God. The LORD alone is God. Nowhere in the
Old testament, is Jesus ever anything other than a FUTURE man, whose
relationship to God will be that of a Son who is also a servant. The Son will
be God's agent, but cannot himself be God, for God, though He may be a
Father, is neither a man, nor the son of Man. In all of these
promises, God remains alone as the ONE TRUE GOD. Jesus is
promised but not yet in existence. He is the FUTURE plan, THE WORD spoken by
God, which is certain to come to pass. But nowhere in
the Old Testament is there the slightest hint that Jesus already exists as a
person who is part of a tri-une God, or as a pre-existent spirit being. How, if he was
either, could he ever be truly a man? It was a MAN who was promised, and if
God is true to His word, then a REAL MAN Jesus must be. Men who believe
in the pre-existence of Jesus as God, may pay LIP SERVICE to His manhood. In
that, without question, they may even be sincere. However, truth
is the issue in question, not sincerity. And that lip
service to manhood is an abuse of language, a confusion, a lie, which says
one thing, but in the same breath effectively denies it, by making of Jesus
something that could never be really a man. The God of the
Old Testament will not share His glory with another. (Isaiah 42:8 & Isaiah 48:11) In the New
Testament, He has not laid that glory aside, nor has he given it to another. However, He
does now receive that glory, which is His alone, from all who bow the knee to
His glorified, but subservient, Son. This God is
revealed to us by His Son, the man Christ Jesus, who is the Mediator between
God and men. (1 Timothy 2:5) It is Jesus who
acknowledges the One God of the Old Testament, as both His God and our God. (John 20:17) And it is Jesus
who repeats the words of Moses, commanding us to love this God as the LORD our
God, with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and
with all our strength. (Mark 12:29-30) |