The Lord our God serve Him only

[civic]

Deut 6
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lordis one.[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

10 When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build,11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

13 Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. 14 Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; 15 for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. 16 Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah. 17 Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. 18 Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors, 19 thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said.

The many gods/lords contrasted with the 1 God and 1 Lord

1 Cor 8:5-6
There may be so-called gods both in heaven and on earth, and some people actually worship many gods and many lords. 6But for us,

There is one God, the Father,
by whom all things were created,
and for whom we live.
And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ,
through whom all things were created,
and through whom we live.

So we see the many lords/gods are false while the One God/Lord created all things, is before all things and is who we live through and by who we live through.

Only someone with presuppositions would read the text any other way to deny Christ of His glory that is equal with the Father.

see John 17:5 and Phil 2- He shares the equal glory, honor, praise, worship with the Father are creator of all things as per Heb 1:8-10 cf Rev 4-5.

In the NT, we frequently find the phrase, "God the Father". We never find this phrase, the OT, only in the New, after the incarnation of the Christ.

So if only the Father is God, then why did the Biblical authors need to DISTINGUISH the phrase, "God" with "the Father", instead of simply saying "God" as they did in the OT?
Why wasn't "God" sufficient?
Why the need for "God the Father"?

I will suggest an answer, it was to distinguish the Father from the Son, since the Son is also (the same) God.


Secondly, Paul created a convention of calling the Father "God" (without denying His Lordship), and calling Jesus "Lord" (without denying His deity). What many people don't realize (or at least appreciate is that the Jews CONSTANTLY referred to God as "Lord" in the OT. Taking the commandment to not take the Lord's name in vain to the extreme, they had a habit of NEVER uttering it. So when they were talking about Him to each other, or reading His name in Scripture, they would substitute His name with either "HaShem" ("the name"), or "Adonai" ("Lord"). In fact, that's how the name "Jehovah" came about, by taking the Tetragrammaton, "YHWH", and adding the vowel points for "adonai", and getting "Yahovah". So when the first century Jews were constantly referring to Jesus as "Lord", there were strong connotations of deity.

Finally, the major daily prayer for the Jews is the Sh'ma, Deut. 6:4-5:

Deut. 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
...............................................................YHWH......elohim.......YHWH

So not only were "Lord" and "God" deeply associated with each other in the Jews' daily prayer, this is associated with a New Testament passage, written by a very devout and knowledgeable Jew, namely Paul:

1 Cor. 8:6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

This isn't Christian theology, it's Jewish theology, expanded with Christian revelation.

Christ is called the following which would be against the Shema for a Jew proving Christ is Lord( YHWH in the OT and NT.

Our Lord and Savior
Our Lord and God
Our God and Savior
Our True God and Eternal Life
Our Only Sovereign and Lord
Our God and Creator
Our Savior and Lord
Our Lord and Savior

hope this helps !!!

 

[civic]

Clearly the shema is trinitarian not unitarian

Here' Bowman:

Bauckham rightly understands the three phases to express God's causation of all things in the three ways: God is the efficient cause (ex autou), the instrumental cause (di' autou), and the final cause (eis auton). All three of the prepositional phrases in Romans 11:36 occur in 1 Corinthians 8:6, which states, 'To us there is one God, the Father, from whom [ex hou] are all things and we for him [eis auton], and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom [di' hou] are all things and we through him [di' auton] (literal translation). As Bauckham notes, Paul here assigns two of the three causal functions of God to the Father and the third to Christ.

One should not infer from 1 Corinthians 8:6 that the causal functions assigned there to God the Father are not also applicable to the Son or vice versa

 

[civic]

There is the Plural God who created all things- the Father and Son The Dynamic Duo- The Co-Creators who are before all created things- the Shema- the Eternal God who is Plural in Persons.

Paul in this passage interprets and give us understanding on the true meaning of the Shema- One God, Plural in Persons.

See Dr Robert Bowman below :

This One God Is the Single Divine Being Known in the OT as Jehovah or Yahweh (“The LORD”)​

A. This one God is known in the OT as Jehovah or Yahweh (“the LORD”)

1. Texts where Jehovah is said to be elohim or el: Deut. 4:35, 39; Josh. 22:34; 1 Kings 8:60; 18:21, 39; Ps. 100:3; 118:27; etc.

2. Texts where the compound name “Jehovah God” (Yahweh Elohim) is used: Gen. 2:4-9, 15-22; 3:1, 8-9, 13-14, 21-23; 24:3; Ex. 9:30; Ps. 72:18; 84:11; Jonah 4:6

3. Only one Yahweh/Jehovah: Deut. 6:4; Mark 12:29

4. The Bible never speaks of “the gods” as a group that includes Yahweh; nor is creation ever credited to “gods”; nor does it ever enjoin the worship of “gods”; nor does it speak in any other way that would imply that Yahweh was one of a group of deities. In fact the Bible explicitly rejects these types of statements (e.g., Deut. 5:6-10; 6:4-5, 13; Is. 43:10; 44:6-8, 24).

5. Conclusion: Jehovah is the only God, the only Elor Elohim

B. This one God, the LORD, is one single divine being

1. The Bible always refers to the LORD or God in the third person singular (he, his, him), never as they,and speakers in the Bible addressing God/the LORD always do so in the second person singular (you singular). Citing texts is really unnecessary because there are far too many occurrences, but see, for example, Gen. 1:5, 10; Ex. 3:6, 12-14; 20:7; Deut. 32:39; 1 Kings 18:39; Ps. 23:2-3.

2. Whenever in the Bible the LORD or God speaks to human beings or other creatures, he always speaks of himself in the first person singular (I, and my/mine, not us/we and our/ours). Of the obviously numerous examples, see the especially famous examples in Ex. 3:14; Ex. 20:2; Deut. 5:6. He says “I am the LORD” or “I am the LORD your/their God” some 164 times in the OT (especially in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Isaiah, and Ezekiel).

3. This conclusion cannot be circumvented by saying that there is one “Godhead” consisting of a plurality of divine beings. The word “Godhead” is equivalent to the word “Godhood” (-head is an old English suffix meaning the state or status of something, as in maidenhead, the state of being a maiden or virgin). In the English Bible it is used to translate three closely related words: theion (“divine being,” Acts 17:29), theiotês (“divine nature,” Rom. 1:20), and theotês (“deity,” Col. 2:9). In none of these texts does “Godhead” refer to more than one divine being. The use of “Godhead” as a term for the Trinity is not found in the Bible; it is not inaccurate per se, but it must be understood as a term for a single divine being, not a group of gods.

C. However, the Bible never says that God is “one person.”

1. Heb. 1:3 KJV speaks of God’s “person,” but the word used here, hupostasis, is translated “substance” in Heb. 11:1 KJV; also in Heb. 1:3 “God” refers specifically to the Father.

2. Gal. 3:20 speaks of God as one party in the covenant between God and man, not as one person.

3. Job 13:8 KJV speaks of God’s “person,” but ironically the Hebrew literally means “his faces.”

D. The use of plural pronouns by God in Genesis 1-11

1. As already noted, the Bible always refers to God in the singular, and he always speaks of himself with singular pronouns (I, me, mine, my) when addressing creatures. These singular forms do not disprove that God exists as three “persons” as long as these persons are not separate beings.

2. At least three times God speaks of or to himself using plural pronouns (Gen. 1:26; 3:22; 11:7), and nontrinitarian interpretations cannot account for these occurrences.

a. A plural reference to God and the angels is not likely in these texts. In 1:26 “our image” is explained by the parallel in 1:27, “in God’s image.” In 3:22 “like one of us” refers back to 3:5, “like God.” In 11:7 “let us go down and there confuse their language” is explained immediately in 11:8-9, “So the LORD [Yahweh] scattered them abroad from there … The LORD confused the language of the whole earth.” Angels were evidently present when God created human beings (cf. Job 38:4-7), but the Bible never includes them as participants in creating human beings. Nor does the Bible ever speak of humans as being in the image of angels.

b. That the plural is in some way literal is evident from 3:22 (“like one of us”) and from 11:7 (“Come, let us go down”), which parallels the people’s statements “Come, let us …” (11:3, 4).

c. The “literary plural” (possibly, though never clearly, attested in Paul) is irrelevant to OT texts in which God is speaking, not writing.

d. The “plural of deliberation” or “cohortative plural” (as in “Let’s see now …”) with reference to a single person is apparently unattested in biblical writings, and clearly cannot explain the plural in Gen. 3:22 (“like one of us”).

e. The “plural of amplitude” or of “fullness” (which probably does explain the use of the plural form elohim in the singular sense of “God”) is irrelevant to the use of plural pronouns, and again cannot explain Gen. 3:22 and 11:7.

f. The “plural of majesty” (the royal “we”) is possiblyattested in 1 Kings 12:9; 2 Chron. 10:9; more likely Ezra 4:18; but none of these is a certain use of that idiom; and again, it cannot explain Gen. 3:22 and 11:7.

3. There are two factors that may explain why these intradivine plural pronouns occur only in Genesis 1-11.

a. These plural pronouns express communication among the divine persons, rather than communication from God to human beings or angelic creatures.

b. It may be significant that the use of these plural forms is reported only in Genesis 1-11, prior to the revelations to Abraham, when the focus of biblical revelation became the fostering of a monotheistic faith. The history of the OT is a history of the struggle to establish Israel as a community committed to belief in one God. In that context it would have been confusing to have referred overtly to the three divine persons of the triune God. This also explains why there is no overt revelation of the three persons in the OT.

E. The uniqueness of God should prepare us for the possibility that the one divine Being exists uniquely as a plurality of persons

1. Only one God, thus unique: see I.A

2. None are even like God: see I.B

3. God cannot be fully comprehended: Is. 40:18, 25; 1 Cor. 8:2-3

4. God can be known only insofar as the Son reveals Him: Matt. 11:25-27; John 1:18

5. Analogical language needed to describe God: Ezek. 1:26-28; Rev. 1:13-16

6. God is transcendent, entirely distinct from and different than the universe, as the carpenter is distinct from the bench

a. Separate from the world: Is. 40:22; Acts 17:24

b. Contrasted with the world: Ps. 102:25-27; 1 John 2:15-17

c. Created the world: Gen. 1:1; Ps. 33:6; 102:25; Is. 42:5; 44:24; John 1:3; Rom. 11:36; Heb. 1:2; 11:3



hope this helps !!!

 

[civic]

YHWH(God Almighty) revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush (Ex. 3:2-15). It was I AM that spoke with Moses, we are told it was the angel of the Lord that appeared to him. Jesus said to the Jews that He was the I Am that appeared to Moses (John 8:58). The Word (John 1:1) the 2nd Person of the Trinity is who appeared and came down from heaven as the angel of Jehovah. He appeared as a man. This angel of the Lord is called Yahweh in (Gen. 19:1-13, 33). God went before the Hebrews in the wilderness. What they saw was the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire (Ex. 13:21-22). Paul declared it was Christ who appeared in the wilderness and it was Christ the Lord who was tempted.(1 Cor 10:1-12)

John 1:18 says, "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God/Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared of explained Him." And then there is John 6:46, "Not that any man hath seen the Father, except he who is from God, he hath sen the Father." The point being made is the fact that the Son of God is the visible manifestation of God (Hebrews 1:3) and the kicker verse if you wil is John 5:37, "And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. YOU HAVE NEITHER HEARD HIS VOICE AT ANY TIME, NOR SEEN HIS FORM." So Jesus here out His own mouth says you have neither heard the Fathers voice nor seen His form."

The angel of the Lord who is YHWH is worshiped as YHWH- the Lord God !

Since God took the form of a man in the person of the preincarnate Jesus Christ this has to mean that Jesus Christ is God. So on what basis do I come to this conclusion? On the basis of what Jesus Christ Himself said at John 6:46, "Not that any man hath seen the Father, except he who is from God, he hath seen the Father." And on the basis of the testimony of Old Testament saints themselves. Look at Genesis 16:13, "Then she/Hagar called the name OF THE LORD WHO spoke to her, Thou art a God who sees; for she said, Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him." Genesis 18 reading the whole chapter. Here is what vs1 states, "Now the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, while he/Abraham was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day." Please read the rest of the chapter and cross reference what Genesis 21:2 says regarding Genesis 18. "So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time OF WHICH GOD HAD SPOKEN TO HIM."

And who appeared to Isaac at Genesis 26:2? "And the Lord appeared to him and said, "Do not go down to Egypt, stay in the land of which I shall tell you." Now look at Genesis 26:3, "Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to your and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will ESTABLISH THE OATH WHICH I SWORE TO YOUR FATHER ABRAHAM."

Where did God swear this oath to Abraham ? Look at the whole chapter of Genesis 22 specifically verses 11-18. It was the angel of the Lord/Jesus Christ who swore the oath and He is identified as, what did you say, "God introduced Himself in the first person singular as "The Being." In fact, even the New Testament backs up this first person singular being swearing the oath by Himself at Hebrews 6:13,14, "For when GOD made the promise to Abraham, SINCE HE COULD NOT SWEAR BY NO ONE GREATER, HE SWORE BY HIMSELF. saying, "I will surely bless you; and I will surely multiply you." If you believe that it was an angel that swore the oath on Gods behalf than why does the text say God swore the oath BY HIMSELF AND THERE IS NO ONE GREATER, especially angels who are created like the rest of us mere humans.

Gen 22:11-14

But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"

"Here I am," he replied.

12 "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."

13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided."


Exodus 3:2, 5

And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed…And he said, Draw not nigh thither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”

Judg 6:11-28

The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior."

13 "But sir," Gideon replied, "if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, 'Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt? But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian."

14 The Lord turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?"

15 "But Lord,” Gideon asked, "how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family."

16 The Lord answered, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together."

17 Gideon replied, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you."

And the Lord said, "I will wait until you return."

19 Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.

20 The angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth." And Gideon did so. 21 With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the Lord touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the Lord disappeared. 22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the Lord, he exclaimed, "Ah, Sovereign Lord! I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!"

23 But the Lord said to him, "Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die."

24 So Gideon built an altar to the Lord there and called it The Lord is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

25 That same night the Lord said to him, "Take the second bull from your father's herd, the one seven years old.Tear down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. 26 Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering."

27 So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the Lord told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.

28 In the morning when the men of the town got up, there was Baal's altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar!

 

[civic]

I. Plural pronouns used of God proving YHWH is Plural in Persons:

Click here for detailed study of plural references to God

A. Three plural pronouns, (We, Us, Our) used 6 different times in four different passages. Remember the word God (elohim) is also plural every time it is used in the Old Testament. Gen 11:7 also includes a plural verb (confuse) which even further, through grammar reinforces the plural "elohim" and the plural pronoun US.

1. "Our" Gen 1:26
2. "Us" Gen 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isa 6:8
3. "We" Isa 6:8

B. These are the four passages where God speaks for Himself and uses plural pronouns:

1. "Then God [plural elohim] said, "Let Us [plural pronoun] make man in Our [plural pronoun] image, according to Our [plural pronoun] likeness" Genesis 1:26
2. "Then Yahweh God [plural elohim] said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us [plural pronoun], knowing good and evil" Genesis 3:22
3. "Come, let Us [plural pronoun] go down and there confuse [plural form of balal] their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech." Genesis 11:7
4. "Then I heard the voice of the Lord [plural elohim], saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us [plural pronoun]?"" Isaiah 6:8

II. Christ is the identical image of God, angels are not

A. Jesus Christ is our co-creator who is the exact image of God.

1. "see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. " 2 Corinthians 4:4
2. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. " Colossians 1:15
3. "And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, " Hebrews 1:3

B. There is no reason to suggest the plural pronoun is the "plural of Majesty", since both Jesus and the Father are described as having the same image.

hope this helps !!!

 

[Pancho Frijoles]

A. Jesus Christ is our co-creator who is the exact image of God.

1. "see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. " 2 Corinthians 4:4
2. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. " Colossians 1:15
3. "And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, " Hebrews 1:3

B. There is no reason to suggest the plural pronoun is the "plural of Majesty", since both Jesus and the Father are described as having the same image.

hope this helps !!!

Hi Civic

The verses you have kindly quoted do not say that both Jesus and the Father "have the same image".
Christ is said to be the image of the Father. Jesus is said to be the exact representation of the nature of his Father.

The Father is invisible, so it does not have by Himself an image.
The Father is not a representation of anything else

Christ provides to humans an interface with the Father. Christ provides an image and representation.
Do we want to know the Father? Let's observe what Jesus speaks and does.
Is Jesus the Father? No, he is not. Jesus is his image and representation.

 

[101G]

So we see the many lords/gods are false while the One God/Lord created all things, is before all things and is who we live through and by who we live through.

so the "LORD" at Deuteronomy 6:4 "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:" is he the same one person at John 1:3 who made all things? "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." yes or no?

101G.