The Oneness of God

The opening lines of the Bible state, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:1-2). It then goes on to explain how God spoke everything we know into existence. Many believe this to be the first mention of the Godhead in the Scriptures. You have God’s word and His Spirit all working together in tandem to create the vast universe we see today. In fact, many in the Jewish tradition believe ‘7’ to be the number of completeness as it took Him seven days to create everything.

Now, there are many Christians today that don’t believe God is unified this way. That there are three personalities of the Godhead as the New Testament lays out. I admit, it’s difficult to explain sometimes with our limited knowledge, however, it actually has its roots back in the Old Testament.

In Genesis 19:24, we read “Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens” with regards to the destruction of the evil cities that Lot and his family had to flee. Read that verse again. You might ask, what does it mean that there are two “Lords”? Another verse you can read is Psalm 110:1. “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.’”. Again, how can there be two “Lords”?

You can even see it in stories like Genesis 32. The second half of that chapter talks about Jacob wrestling with a man for a little while. After the scuffle, Jacob says, “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” (v. 30) How is it that Jacob had seen God? No one has seen God, right? (John 1:18; 1 John 4:12)

Well, what we have is basically two versions of God, for lack of better terminology. There’s the invisible God which is in Heaven. We are veiled from Him because of our sin and the curse He’s placed on the universe. But, there also seems to be a visible part of God that we can see, to the best of our ability. Unlike the Deist position, which basically says that when God left us all alone after He saw us rebelling against Him, the Bible teaches that He still interacts with His creation, even though we have been separated from Him (cf. Isaiah 59:2).

Just doing a simple study on “the angel of the Lord” will show that this angel speaks on behalf of God. He speaks as though He is God sometimes (ex. Judges 2:1). Another verse to look at is Joshua 5:15. This commander tells Joshua to remove his sandal because he is standing on holy ground. This sounds quite similar to God telling Moses this very thing back in Exodus 3. The question is; who are these messengers that can speak with such authority? The most obvious answer is that it’s God Himself doing the talking. He alone has all authority, being the creator of everything.

Now, I don’t want this be a lesson on a defense of the Godhead. I simply wanted to show you that those who oppose this doctrine probably haven’t read the Old Testament much. This used to a basic Jewish doctrine. But why did they stop? Because they became hardened in their hearts and had to distant themselves from the new religion emerging at the time. They didn’t want to look too “Christian”. Those who did notice though, believed in Jesus’ message.

We then fast forward to the New Testament times and Jesus too uses this same authority when talking with the people of His day (cf Matthew 21:23). He also speaks on behalf of God and said Himself “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18) just before His ascension. The apostle John even gives Him the title of logos or the ‘Word’ of God (John 1:1). Could Jesus have been that angel of the Lord all the way back in the Old Testament? They both share very similar traits so it’s very possible. Too, Paul says all things were created by Him (Colossians 1:16) like John says in John 1:3. He was the very words of God that we read back in Genesis 1:1.

So, when Christians claim that “God is one”, as the Scriptures say, it’s not so much a numerical value, but one of unity and togetherness. The Godhead is unified in all they say and do. That’s exactly the reason the Jews wanted to stone Jesus for saying that He and the Father “are one” (John 10:30-33). They were unified in their mission. Their essence is one in the same. That’s why He tells us to be unified with Him also (John 17:20-23).