G-d is One

At the beginning of my last post I mentioned that there were two themes that were expressed over and over in the area of the servant song chapters. The first is that when the servant is spoken of it is always in reference to Israel. The second theme is that there is only one G-d and this is what I am going to address today.

Like many in the Christian world, I grew up with the idea of the trinity. The triune G-d of the Father , the son , and the holy ghost. Like many others before me, it also didn't make a lot of sense to me. Three parts of G-d separate and distinct yet somehow one all at the same time.

I once tried to explain it like this: I am a father, husband and a Marine. Three different parts of me but still one person. I came to learn however that this analogy doesn't work. Being a Marine I was obligated to do things that separated me from my family. I couldn't be a dad or a husband, I had to focus on being a Marine. If I was acting in the role of husband, I wasn't acting as a Marine or the daddy. In other words I couldn't do all three at once.

Now some might argue that G-d can do all this, be all things at once, if He wishes, and indeed, He could, however there is a problem with that idea. Lets look at Exodus 20:3-5 “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; You shall not bow down to them or serve them.

Given this train of thought, if G-d “created” ( however you care to look at that idea) a son ,to be worshiped, then He in effect broke one of His own laws by making an image of Himself or a likeness there of. So if G-d does not lie, as we have read in Numbers 23, then He wouldn't have created an image of Himself to be Himself on earth and He couldn't have honestly punished Israel for doing the very same thing. A sort of “do as I say not as I do” mentality in other words.

So why would G-d be that particular with the children of Israel ? First G-d is not a man (see Numbers 23:19) He is spirit, but He also knew that the nations around them,especially where they were heading, worshiped that which was created rather then the creator. They themselves created a golden calf as a god while waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain. He knew what was in them.

G-d is One

Deuteronomy 6:4 This is probably the one verse that anyone with any connection to Judaism can recite. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!” NKJV

The JPV says “ the Lord alone” meaning “the only one.”

By the time we get to the time of Isaiah the children of Israel had rejected G-d so many times and so deeply that they were starting the punishment that they had been warned about before the death of Moses in the later chapters of Deuteronomy. Yet even then G-d was trying to reach them and tell them that He alone is G-d.

Isaiah 42:8-9 “I am the Lord, that is My name; I will not yield My glory to another,nor my renown to idols. See the things predicted have come, And now I foretell new things, Announce to you ere they sprout up.”

Isaiah 43:3 “For I the Lord am your G-d, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Verse 10 “ Before Me

no god was formed, And after Me none shall exist.

Isaiah 44:6 “Thus said the Lord, the King of Israel, Their Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts; I am the first and I am the last, And there is no god but Me.” Verse 8 “ Do not be frightened , do not be shaken! Have I not from of old predicted to you? I foretold and you are my witnesses. Is there any god then but Me? There is no other rock; I know none.

Isaiah 45:5-6 “I am the Lord and there is none else; there is none else. Beside Me there is no god. I engird you, though you have not known Me, So that they may know, from east to west, That there is none but Me. I am the Lord and there is none else.

Israel was punished for a number of things but the worst of them was idolatry.

In my own humble view based on what I have shared with you, and other parts I have studied, there is only one G-d, and He is not divided up into separate pieces, He is alone and is unique. He is G-d of us all.

Shalom