In our August newsletter article “Three Men and a Great Messiah,” we featured three stories of one-on-one discipleship. The books used in those testimonies have been combined into our newly reformatted book Messianic Discipleship, which comprehensively leads one through the basic issues of faith in Messiah. As talmidut (discipleship) is so essential, and because the nature of God is so relevant to Jewish ministry, we thought it appropriate to offer these excerpts from our new book.

There is no one like God. Yet, a common misconception about the faith of New Covenant believers is that we teach “belief in three gods.” For many, this summarizes the issue of the “Trinity.” Clear teachings in the New Covenant prove otherwise:

"And Yeshua answered him and said, 'The first of all the commandments is: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord'” (Mark 12:29; 1 Corinthians 8:4; James 2:19).

New Covenant faith is monotheistic; the word “trinity” itself is a contraction of “tri-unity,” emphasizing that He is One. But, sadly, confusion prevails because of general ignorance about what is often called “God’s mystery nature.” This should be clarified where at all possible, not only so that we might better communicate with those who do not yet believe, but that believers themselves might relate to what the Bible says in a Jewish frame of reference. In other words, we need to understand the tri-unity of God is not a Gentile fable or goyisha bubbemeises, but revealed truth.

“One” Words
The testimony of the Jewish Scriptures is the authority for knowing about God, and as we look into Torah specifically we see the basis of the Unity of God presented:

“Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4). Sh’ma Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad.

One Jewish man commented to me, “God is mentioned three times right there in the verse that speaks of His oneness!” Perhaps, but for now let us notice that the word one (echad, in the original Hebrew) can point to a oneness-in-plurality. For example, when God established the marriage relationship, the Scripture states:

For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife; and the two shall be one flesh (Genesis 2:24).

Here we see that this word for “one” (echad) is not used to indicate something utterly singular, but a oneness-in-plurality. Numbers 13:23 likewise uses the same word to speak of one cluster of grapes. And a cluster has a plurality of grapes!  

If the Scriptures had wanted to describe God as one in the singular sense with no possibility of a triune nature, there is another word for one in the Hebrew, yachid. For instance, yachid is used when God was speaking to Abraham about Isaac:

“Take now your son, your only son” (Genesis 22:2).

Although Abraham had another son, Ishmael, God refers to Isaac as a one-of-a-kind son, the son of the covenant (this language prefigures Messiah as shown in Hebrews 11:17; John 3:16).

Yachid is used twelve times in the Hebrew Scriptures, and speaks of a unique or lone oneness. However, the word yachid is never used regarding God! In light of the rampant polytheism (worship of many gods) in the ancient world, yachid would have been useful if the Scriptures were to deny the notion of there being more than one person Who is God. Yachid is never used in the Bible to describe the Divine nature, and to use it in that way would have been to deny the reality of the triune nature of God.

Tradition or Truth? 
There is a place where yachid is used to describe God - in Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Faith. In historical context, Maimonides’ wrote the second principle to deny the triune nature of God. It reads:

I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be His name, is a Unity (yachid), and that there is no unity in any manner like unto His, and that He alone is our God, Who was, is, and will be.

Now, it is certainly true as Maimonides says that the Creator is a Unity; in fact, there is no other unity like His; and indeed, God alone is Eternal. Yet it is interesting that the word used for God’s Unity here is yachid! Prior to Maimonides, the word echad was always used when referring to God’s Unity. As the polemical conflict between Rabbinic Judaism and hostile anti-Jewish Christendom worsened, the Rabbinic concept of God strayed from the Bible. Sadly, down to our own day this has led to deep misunderstanding of what the Scriptures teach. However, Jewish believers in Yeshua are the remnant of the Jewish community that holds to the Biblical view of God.

This nature of God is assumed in the Scripture, rather than explained. Even from the first verse of Genesis, it is interesting that the word used for God, Elohim, has a plural ending. When God created man, we are brought into the counsels of God’s own heart when we read:

And God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).

Notice the plural possessive pronoun “Our.” Here God acknowledges His own plural nature, as opposed to Him speaking to a group of angels. The Scripture proves this by going on to say:

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (Genesis 1:27).

One.. Three.. So What?
To know the Triune God is to know One Who is eternally relational. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are fully God, and in community with one another. This is how the Eternal God is love - because Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in eternal fellowship together. This is why Yeshua can say,

“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

We read from Genesis 1:27 that God made us in His image: “male and female He created them.” Since relationship is intrinsic to the Triune God, it is intrinsic to our lives as well. God created us for relationship with Him and with each other.

Mysteries are not like problems to be solved, but rather places where we should fall down to worship. Rather than believe only what we can comprehend, we have faith in God’s testimony:

“Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5).

Even as regards the Lord’s nature, we lean not on our own understanding, but rather depend upon the Word of God. Y
 

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