God exists as three persons, yet he is one being. Each person—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—has a separate identity while enjoying the same essence of nature as the others, not merely similar natures in different roles. Some might think this is contradictory. It would be contradictory if the doctrine of the Trinity claimed one God and three Gods at the same time. But the Trinity is one God who eternally co-exists as three persons. God is, was, and always will be. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three distinct persons share this one substance and essence of being God.
For century upon century, faithful Jews have begun their daily prayers by reciting the shema, the phrase Moses spoke to the Israelites after delivering the Ten Commandments to them:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the LORD is one (Deuteronomy 6:4 NIV).
The shema reveals the singularity of God. “See now,” God says in his Word, “there is no god besides me” (Deuteronomy 32:39 NIV). “Understand that I alone am God,” he declares. “There is no other God; there never has been and never will be” (Isaiah 43:10).
But the shema does not only refer to the singularity of God; it also testifies to his unity. Long before Jesus Christ was revealed to humans as the Son of God, long before the Holy Spirit was given to the church at Pentecost, God revealed himself as a mysterious unity. God said, “Let us make people in our image” (Genesis 1:26), yet “the LORD is one”. The divine name Elohim, applied to God throughout the Pentateuch, is a plural in the Hebrew, yet “the LORD is one.”
Even in Old Testament times, the concept of a plural Godhead—what we call the Trinity—existed. The oneness of God represents a perfect relationship of unity. The shema makes it clear that God is not a partnership. He is not a conglomeration. He is not a committee. He is a unity and cannot be separated. He cannot be divided. His perfect oneness in loving relationship within the Godhead is not something he strives for; it is not even something he manufactures. It is something he is.
Unity is part of God’s nature and character. Yet he is more than our perfect love model of relational oneness. God’s unity in the Trinity is the secret to unlocking how relationship is meant to work. While we can never comprehend God’s oneness in relationship in an absolute sense, we can gain enough insight into this mystery to experience relationships the way God meant them to be experienced.
Remember Steve H in prayer, vim and vigor, encouragement, blessings, pray for the church that they are united in prayer, believing God will bring them the right pastor. Keep his wife Pam in prayer, healing of chronic knee pain.
Once again, that phrase “this could be cancer” I have lost count of the times I have heard this. Thursday I will be at the VA hospital getting tested again for what could be oral, sinus and jawbone cancer.
Remember Caliste Burt in your prayers, 2 inoperable brain tumors, another bi-monthly MRI, praying for no change.
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