Our God Is One and Jesus Is God
Our God Is One and Jesus Is God
Last week we discussed the Biblical Revelation of the Oneness of God. There are a lot of ideas in the world today about who God is, or what God is, even how many gods exist, or if any exist at all. But the Scripture is replete with verse after verse that confirms and supports the doctrine of “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord” [Deuteronomy 6:4].
We learned about the name that was revealed to Moses when he approached the burning bush on the backside of the desert. When asked His name, God replied,
Exodus 3:14
14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
God revealed His name as “I AM”. This translated from Hebrew into English is pronounced Yahweh and from the Latin counterpart we get the word Jehovah.
In this session we will continue our study on the One True God, and tonight’s focus will be the truth in Scripture that Jesus is God.
Jesus Is God On Display
1 Peter 1:18-20
18 forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20 who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
Before God spoke the world into existence He already knew He would fashion Himself as a man, so that He could redeem back the very people He created, who would choose to disobey and go their own way. This simply means that the plan of God existed in the mind of God before the body of God was created.
John chapter one tells us about God’s thoughts and plan of becoming flesh. The plan where the God of heaven comes down to the earth that He created to live for a time as a man. This man (the created body) was Jesus and Colossians tells us that,
Colossians 2:9
9 […] in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
Just consider this, we are created from a combination of the DNA of our mother and father. As a man Jesus was no different. His body was a combination of the DNA of both His mother (Mary) and His Father. But who was the father of Jesus?
Luke 1:35
35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
Just like you and me, from the moment of conception, His DNA was complete. One cell, divided into two, then four, then sixteen, and so on. Soon His tiny heart began to beat. Organs formed. If technology had been available, Mary and Joseph would have been able to get a picture of Jesus in the womb. They would have seen toes and fingers. They would have heard that swooshing sound of a heart beating. Can you just imagine how exciting that would have been? And all of this was foretold by the Prophet Isaiah.
Isaiah 7:14
14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Then 700 years later an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph.
Matthew 1:20-21
20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. 21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
Isaiah said His named shall be called Emmanuel, meaning God with us. But when it came to His given name, His given name was Jesus. Why? For He will save His people from their sins.
During His earthly life, Jesus proclaimed Himself to be the fulfillment of the prophecy found in Isaiah 61.
Luke 4:17-21
17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
Jesus claimed to be older than Abraham, who incidentally lived at least forty generations (4,000 years) before Jesus. And when He made this proclamation notice what He said.
John 8:58
58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
Later He told His disciples that after His death they would know Him as the “I AM”.
John 13:19
19 Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he.
Right before His arrest in the garden, He told the soldiers that He was the “I AM”.
John 18:4-8
4 Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye? 5 They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them. 6 As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground. 7 Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. 8 Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he: if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way:
[Theological Note: In each of these passages the word ‘he’ that follows the phrase ‘I AM’ is in italics. That means this word is not in the original text and was added for translational context.]
Jesus embodied the very life and “fullness” of God [Colossians 2:9]. He was the “expressed image of God” [Hebrews 1:3]. He said, “whoever has seen me has seen the Father” [John 14:9]. And when asked to identify the greatest commandment, notice His answer in Mark 12:29.
Mark 12:29
29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
If there was more than one person, or more than one deity, do you not think that Jesus would have fully ratified that in His answer? So, why do so many believe that there are three? Why do so many believe in the non-Biblical construct known as the trinity?
[Adapted from Pastor Raymond Woodward’s study on the Trinity]
Several hundred years before Jesus was ever born, there lived a philosopher named Socrates. He was a man who sought for wisdom and is cited as saying he received it from an “internal sign”1. He considered this “internal sign” to be “divine”2 as it spoke to him in “a kind of voice”3. One would like to believe that it was God speaking to him, but it wasn't because when asked if these “voices” were the three Greek gods, Zeus, Apollo, and Athena, Socrates said, “Certainly”4. When asked if they were his gods, he answered they are “my lords and ancestor”4. Not only did he believe that his wisdom came from these spirits, but he also openly declared that these wise spirits were demons5.
Plato, a student of Socrates, was born in 427 B.C. and believed and taught many things that are against the Bible. One example was his idea that there is a universal deity composed of three separate beings. He never called his deity a trinity, but his concept of God was referred to as the “Platonic Trinity”. The three persons in this triad were: God, the Ideas, and the World-Spirit. They were almost identical to Socrates' gods: Zeus, “the Father”6; Apollo, the begotten son of Zeus who was the “god of intellect”7; and Athena whose name means, “eternal life” and was an unbegotten spirit-being who came into the world from the head of Zeus8.
Plato also had a famous student, Aristotle. Aristotle was a teacher to Alexander the Great, who conquered and ruled most of Europe, Asia, and Africa, about 300 years before the birth of Jesus. Because of this Plato’s philosophies spread throughout the “known world” and were certainly prevalent in the days of Jesus Christ, as well as in the centuries that followed.
The Apostles who preached the truth found in the New Testament were not influenced by these men and their teachings, but other men were and in the process of time, teachings that were different from that of the Apostles began to be taught. Proving the words of Jesus, that the enemy comes to “steal, kill, and destroy” [John 10:10].
Within 300 years of the Day of Pentecost, the Roman Catholic Church had its first ecumenical (world-wide) council to discuss the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, which are based on the teachings of certain men referred to as ‘Church Fathers’, and with these teachings the church changed many truths into false traditions.
One of the earliest fathers was Justin Martyr, who became a Christian in 133 A.D. and said that there was no difference between the philosophies of Socrates and Plato and Christianity. That Christianity fulfills the highest aspirations of Plato9. Justin also said that the Bible and Plato agreed10. Justin called Socrates, whose name means 'mighty savior', a “Christian before Christ”11. Remember this is the same Socrates who said his teachings were from false gods and demons. Although the Catholic Church does not regard all of Justin's teachings, they do admit that “his influence is marked above.”12
In 185 A.D. another Church Father, Origen, declared that “all truth is precious, whether in Greek or Christian soil...[and] He recognized in the revived Plato a powerful ally of Christianity.”13 Origen “used the philosophy of the Greeks as the vestibule through which to admit his hearers into the temple of the gospel”14.
Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” [Matthew 7:15]. It’s interesting that during the period around the early Church, philosophers were required to wear a special coat when fulfilling their office. It was a coat made of sheep's wool. These are the “false prophets” or as they preferred to be called “philosophers”, that Jesus was speaking of. Origen said he used the philosophies of these men to show people the gospel. But these philosophies originated, not in heaven, but in hell.
Socrates called one of his lords ‘Apollo’. Revelation 9:11 says, the angel of the bottomless pit is called by the Greek name ‘Appolyon’, which is a corrupted form of ‘Apollo’. So, we can derive from Scripture that the devil is the agent who gave Socrates his ideas and philosophies, and many of the Catholic Church Fathers used these philosophies to form their Church doctrines, one of which is the teaching of ‘The Trinity’.
In 325 A.D., the Council of Nicaea established that the Father and Son were separate. Then there was another Council held at Constantinople, in 381 A.D. where it was determined that the Holy Spirit was also separate from the Father and the Son. Thus, the concept of the Trinity was born.
In 354 A.D. a man named Augustine was born, one of the most notable of the church fathers. He laid many of the foundations for the Roman Catholic Church. He believed that “the basis for faith was found in Christ, and the basis for reason was the philosophy of Plato”15.
Could it be that his belief in the philosophies of Plato laid the foundation for his teachings on the Trinity? Jesus said, “Wide is the gate...which leadeth to destruction” [Matthew 7:13]. The name Plato comes from a Greek word πλᾰτῠ́ς ('platus') which means “wide”16. These church fathers were allowing this scripture to be fulfilled through their teachings. They based much of their teachings, including ‘The Trinity’, on the philosophies of Plato. Plato was instructed by Socrates. Socrates had wisdom given to him by Greek gods, who Socrates himself referred to as demons.
So, I ask, ‘Is this where the Church should get its doctrines?’ The answer is a resounding ‘NO!!’
The Bible plainly says that: “God was manifested in the flesh” [1 Timothy 3:16]; that “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself” [1 Corinthians 5:19]; that Jesus Christ was “the only begotten God” [John1:18]. Jesus did not say He was the second person in a trinity. He said, “I am the first and the last” [Revelation 1:7]. You deserve to know the Truth.
The truth is Our God Is One and Jesus Is God!
REFERENCES
1 Plato, The Republic, Book 4, 496
2 Plato, Euthydemus, 272
3 Plato, Apology, 31
4 Plato, Euthydemus, 302
5 Plato, Cratylus, 398
6 New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol 4, 537
7 Time-Life Books, Classical Greece, 18
8 Ibid., Appendix, The Olympian Family
9 New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol 8, 94
10 New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol 8, 94
11 New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol 8, 94
12 New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol 8, 95
13 John Fletcher Hurst, History of The Christian Church, 300
14 John Fletcher Hurst, History of The Christian Church, 304
15 New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol 8, 1063
16 Vine, Unger, and White, Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, 742