Plain Talk About Who God Is
Anthony Buzzard
Trying to
read the Bible without understanding who the God of the Bible is is likely to
be frustrating. Unfortunately so much pressure and dogmatism now surrounds the
issue of who God is that Christians are unable to approach the text of
Scripture with an open mind. A great
measure of fear attends their studies, because they have been told what kind of
a God they are to find in the Bible, or else . . . hellfire! This is a hopeless
atmosphere for calm and reasoned investigation.
The
matter of deciding who God is in the Bible is relatively simple, if we follow
sound procedure.
And sound
procedure demands that we start our investigation in the right place, the
Hebrew Bible, the Bible which nurtured the Jews and Jesus and which Jesus
categorically said he did not come to destroy (Mat_5:17).
What God
is presented in Jesus' Bible
The creed
of Israel, the cardinal tenet of all sound religion and the great hedge against
idolatry and paganism, is of course the Shema -- "Hear O Israel,
the Lord our God is one God" (Deu_6:4). This
creed declares that the "Lord God is ONE LORD." The oneness of God is
here proposed in the simplest and clearest language.
To
confirm this central truth the Hebrew Bible describes God with singular
pronouns (I, Me, You, Him, My, Your, His) thousands upon thousands of times!
Anyone
with a rudimentary knowledge of language knows, or ought to know, that singular
pronouns denote a single Person. God therefore in the Bible is One
Person.
Jesus
affirmed the unitary, non-trinitarian faith of Israel when he replied to the
question put to him by a theologian as to the greatest of all commandments.
Jesus
replied that the "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord" is the
pinnacle of divine revelation. Only that God is to be loved with all our
hearts and minds and strength (Mar_12:28-34).
Paul
echoed the teaching of Jesus on this point with complete simplicity and
clarity. Discussing the multiple gods of paganism, Paul contrasted the
Christian belief:
"To us [Christians] there is
ONE God, the Father . . . And no other one besides Him" (1Co_8:4-6). That
of course is unitary monotheism, belief that God is a single Person.
The One
God is defined, we note, not as three eternal Persons, but as the Father.
At once
we are aware of a great difference between what traditionally appears in faith
statements and what Paul actually said: There is one God, the Father."
That is simply the unitary monotheism of Paul's and Jesus' Jewish heritage. Is
by definition also the Christian creed, because it is the biblical creed.
The stark
simplicity of this creed may seem threatening to some, but it is the force of
prejudice which makes it difficult to accept. There is no complexity about
Paul's creed. It is straightforward and beyond argument.
Many,
however, find it unsatisfactory, and they rush to point out that Paul in 1Co_8:4-6 went on
to say that Jesus was "God."
But did
he? In fact, not at all. Paul did indeed go on to say that "there is one
Lord Jesus Messiah." But it would be a fatal and confusing move to think
that Paul, by calling Jesus Lord was really calling him God! There is a
crucial difference.
You see,
there is a simple and overpoweringly influential text behind Pul's language. It
is Psa_110:1, the very text which Jesus himself had
produced when describing the relationship of himself the Messiah to the one God
(Mar_12:35-37).
Psa_110:1 is
quoted or alluded to no less than 23 times in the New Testament. It appears in
every section of the New Testament, and it would be a major mistake to ignore
its importance.
Psa_110:1
recognizes in good Jewish fashion that God (Yahweh) is One Individual
and that One God speaks in a prophetic oracle to another individual, not
Himself, who is "my Lord," the lord of David. "My lord" is
told to sit at Yahweh's right hand until he is given future victory over his
enemies.
Now the
second lord of Psa_110:1 is definitely NOT God, but a superior human
being. How do we know this for certain? Because of the careful choice of words
in the original. "My lord" in the Hebrew inspired text is ADONI. In
every one of the 195 times the wore ADONI appears in the Bible, it never
means God, but always a human (occasionally angelic) superior. ADONI is the
word which tells us 195 times that the one named is not God, but man.
So when
Paul said that next to the One God, the Father, there is "one Lord Jesus
Messiah," he meant the one (superior, human) lord as defined by Psa_110:1. Paul
has not confused Jesus with God.
Psa_110:1 could
well have used another word to describe the Messiah. There was a word ADONAI
which meant God (in all of its 449 occurrences). But the spirit never confused
God and the Son of God. God was Yahweh or Adonai and the Messiah was the human
lord, ADONI.
There are
two lords in the Bible, God and Jesus. But only the Father is the One God
("There is One God, the Father"). Jesus is the Lord Messiah, not the
Lord God (Luk_2:11, etc.).
The creed
of the Bible is the essence of simplicity: "There is One God, the Father,
and one Lord Messiah Jesus" (1Co_8:4-6).
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