By: Brian Ediger
July 16, 2016
There is one thing that both Unitarians (or Oneness believers) and Trinitarians agree on. There is only one, true and living God. Any other being (real or imagined) claiming to be a god is not a god (1 Corinthians 8:5-6). Even the angels are not gods, though they are much more powerful than we humans are. There are verses that call angels and men gods, but it is not in a way that would equate them with Yahweh, who is THE God. There are groups, however, who claim to be Christian, and even use the Bible and Christian language, that claim God the Father is not the only God. They will say that Jesus is also a God, but is subordinate to the Father since He (Jesus) is called the Son of God (or God the Son), sometimes in a very literal sense. Some will say that Jesus is a created being, even an angel, who then created everything else through the power that the Father gave Him. Some also say that the Holy Spirit is a God, but is subordinate to the Father and the Son. Other groups will say that the Holy Spirit is a force, and therefore not a God or even a person but rather a tool that God uses. The divinity and personage of the Son and the Holy Spirit are topics that will be discussed in later blogs in this series. For now, we will focus on the Bible’s claim that there is only one, true and living God.
Just to make sure I am clear, Trinitarians believe that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all the same being, and are all THE God. Yet, we believe that they are all distinct individuals. Unitarians, on the other hand, believe that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not just the same being, but are also the same person. They believe that at one-time (namely the Old Testament Period) God was the Father, and in the New Testament Period He became the Son (which I imagine is why He wasn’t called the Father until the New Testament), and finally became the Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended into heaven. This is known as modalism, and will be dealt with in another post.
First let us set a definition for God. God is self-existent, that is He does not rely on anyone else to exist, He is eternal and everlasting (always has been, is and always will be). We rely on Him to exist, He will make us immortal at some point, but we are not and will not be eternal. He created us (Genesis 1:26-27). Without that creation, we would obviously not be here. He also upholds us and this whole creation by His power (Colossians 1:17). To me it seems that if God were to stop thinking about us, then we (and this whole creation) would cease to exist. God is the only one with control over this creation. He will give authority to some. For instance, He told Moses to stretch his hand and rod over the Red Sea, and it would part. Moses did that, and the sea parted. But it wasn’t Moses parting the Red Sea. It was God, Moses just followed His command. God is also the only one who knows the future. I’m not talking about an educated guess, and happening to be right. He knows what is going to happen, and He knows why, and sometimes He even writes it and affects it. He can cause storms, draughts, plagues, etc. Sometimes, like with Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, God will show someone the future, and then have someone else, like Joseph or Daniel, interpret the dream or vision that the first person had about the future. God is also the only one who can save us (Isaiah 43:11). In the book of Judges, He used people to save Israel from her enemies, but it was by His power. And it is only by His grace and self-sacrifice (of God the Son) that we are saved from our sins.
Let us look at some verses that call men and angels “gods.” In Exodus 6:28-7:2 God tells Moses that He has made Moses like God to Pharaoh. And as we read the rest of the story, we see that Moses pretty much acts like a judge to Pharaoh. He, through his brother Aaron, tells Pharaoh to let the Israelites go, and what will happen if he doesn’t. But does this mean that Moses now has God’s powers? No, it does not. He is a messenger of God, a tool in the Creator’s hand. Moses did not have power, he was not self-existent, he died.
Another passage is Psalm 82. Most people will go straight to verse 6 which says “I said, ‘You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High.'” And they say, “See! God called others ‘gods.'” And they will also mention John 10:34 where Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6. However, if you read the rest of Psalm 82, then you will quickly see that these are not gods…. at least not as God is God. Since these “gods” are to judge justly and rightly, and they will die like men, then they must be men (though some think they could also be angels). So what does it mean “you are gods”? What does “you are sons of the Most High” mean? It means that they were supposed to be in a very close relationship with the Most High (they are sons of Him right?). I know that not all children have a close relationship with their biological parents, but there is usually some parental figure that they can be close to. They were given authority by God to judge the people. Of course, as we know, power corrupts (at least as far as humans are concerned). They had no power of their own, they did not know the future unless He told them, and they died.
What about the passages that state that there is only one God? Deuteronomy 6:4 states that Yahweh is one Yahweh, or that Yahweh is God alone (at least the God of Israel alone) depending on how you translate it. However, this verse is not explicit enough to say that the Bible claims only one God, but rather only one God for Israel. Isaiah 43:10 on the other hand is very explicit. Yahweh here declares that “No god was formed before Me, and there will be none after Me.” There have been people who taught that Yahweh was not always God, that He followed another god and became a god, and that we could do this as well by following Him. But this passage in Isaiah makes it clear that there was not a God before Yahweh, and that there will not be another one. Psalm 90:2 says that God was and is God from eternity to eternity (or everlasting to everlasting for some translations). Revelation 22:13 has Jesus saying that He is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. And there are many other passages that speaking of the eternality of God, and how He always been God. There is not a single verse that Has God not being God. Even when God the Son experienced human birth, lived for about 33 years and then willing gave up His life on a cross, He was still God. He became man, but that did not diminish His Godhood.
Of course, this is all based on the Bible being true. And the claim that the Bible is true is something that will dominate my blog posts. Outside of the Bible could it be possible that multiple gods (who are truly gods) exist? From a philosophical standpoint, if God is infinite, then there cannot be 2 infinite beings, they would have to differ, and one would be less than infinite. And if God is perfect, then there cannot be 2, they would have to differ, and one would be less than perfect. There could be a subclass of “gods” which brings us back to Psalm 82:6, and passages like it. But this subclass would not truly be God. From an historical standpoint this seems to be true as well. If you look deeply at the polytheistic religions, you will see that there is one god who is sovereign (or supreme) over the others. True polytheism is rare, most of the time it henotheistic (with 1 main god who is not limited and many lesser gods who are limited), or essentially monotheistic with more credit given to spiritual beings than is due. The common school of thought today is that religion started off with animistic shamanism and worked its way through polytheism up to monotheism, and is quickly turning atheistic. However, as I plan on diving into in future blog posts (please be patient), I plan to show that in actuality religion started off monotheistic, and devolved into polytheism, animistic shamanism and atheism.
In conclusion, there is only one, true and living God, and His name is Yahweh! The next few blog posts will delve into the plural personage of God (remember that Trinitarians teach that God is one being with three persons), and then we will show how the Bible claims that Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God (or more appropriately that Jesus is Yahweh and the Holy Spirit is Yahweh). Obviously anyone who believes the Bible would agree that the Father is Yahweh (or at least God, Mormons claim that the Father’s name is Elohim and the Son’s name is Jehovah, but that is another discussion for another blog post).
