By: Brian Ediger
9-24-16
Before moving on to God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, I feel it is necessary to show that within the singular being of God, there is indeed a plurality of persons. Although I could do this after discussing the Son and Spirit, it seems better to do it now. That way we are moving from the Old Testament to the New Testament. The Old testament does give many titles to God, such as “God Almighty,” “The Most High God,” “Lord,” and many others that show God’s sovereignty, holiness, love and mercy. But I want to focus on His name, which is Yahweh.
Yahweh (sometimes written and pronounced Jehovah) is the name that God gives Himself. In the original Hebrew it is simply spelled YHWH, and though the spoken language does have vowel sounds, the written language originally did not have vowel letters or markings (with the except of a few letters that could act as vowel letters). Vowel markings, accents and punctuation didn’t appear in written Hebrew until about the time of the Masoretes, who were a group of Jewish scribes who were around from 6th to 11th centuries AD. When they came across the YHWH in their scriptures, they gave the same vowels that they gave the word Adonai, which means Lord. They did this because of a tradition that came about in the Jewish culture of not even pronouncing the name of God for fear of taking it in vain, which the 3rd commandment states “Do not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain” (Exodus 20:7 in the Hebrew with English underneath, which is called “interlinear”). So translations will say “do not misuse the name…” and this may account for the tradition of the Jewish people. They did not even want to accidently misuse His name, so they would either say “Lord” or “the Name” instead of Yahweh. At any rate, since the Masoretes used the vowels for Adonai in place of the vowels for Yahweh, that is how some people came to pronounce it Jehovah, or Yehovah. I do not want to debate the pronunciation in this post, because it would take up the whole post, but I will keep this in mind for a future post. Suffice it to say that I pronounce it Yahweh, and I do not believe that I misuse nor take in vain His name when I do so. I do not use it as a curse word, and I do my best to live a life in accordance with the Bible (though as a human I am imperfect and often sin).
When reading the Old Testament, you will often come across LORD or GOD (as opposed to Lord, lord, God, or god) in the English versions. Sometimes they will put Yahweh, but not always. When you see them in all capitals like I showed, you should know that in the original Hebrew, that was where YHWH was found. I always say Yahweh when I come across them now, either in my head or out loud. The first use of His name is in Genesis 2:4 (interlinear). Why it is not found in Genesis 1, I don’t know, but it would seem that Genesis 2 was written by someone who knew His name, and had some kind of relationship with Him. Furthermore, in Exodus 3:15 (interlinear) God tells Moses to tell the Israelites the “Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has sent me to you.” Just before that in Exodus 3:14 (interlinear) God says “I am who I am, tell them I am has sent me to you.” In the Hebrew it is ‘ehyeh ‘asher ‘ehyeh, with ‘ehyeh being “I am” and is kind of close to Yahweh. It would appear that the name Yahweh is related to the root word haw-yaw which has a since of being. So this is the name the God gave Himself, and it has a meaning of “I am the one who always has been, is and always will be.”
I wanted to make to make this distinction because when I write about the Son and the Spirit, I will say “Jesus is Yahweh,” or “the Spirit is Yahweh,” as opposed to “Jesus is God” or “the Spirit is God.” My reasoning for this is that if I simply say they are God, someone might try to say that they are just “a god” instead of “THE GOD.” And I want to avoid that. God is the being, much like human is my being. Yahweh is a name, and there is only one Yahweh. There may be more than one Brian Ediger, but there is only one Brian Ediger with my birth date, place of birth, SSN, etc. While some people have a Bob senior, Bob junior, Bob the 3rd, etc. that is not the case with God. There is only one Yahweh as can be seen in the first post of this series, and Jesus is not Yahweh junior.
So how do we show that there is a plurality of persons within the single being who is Yahweh? We start with showing where the text will switch from a first person plural (us) to a third person singular (God, or He). Next we show where Yahweh seems to be in two places at once. We will look at verses in both Testaments, giving special attention to the Old Testament, since the New Testament will be the focus of the posts on the Son and the Spirit.
In Genesis 1:26-27 (HCSB), God says “Les US make man in OUR image, according to OUR likeness.” And then scripture tells us “So GOD created man in HIS own image; HE created him in the image of God; HE created them male and female,” (emphasis mine). Here we have first person plural, followed by third person singular. It doesn’t make since. If there were more than one God, or more than one Yahweh, then the second part should say “So the GODS created man in THEIR own image….” And if there were only one person in the being of God, then the first part should say “I will make man in MY own image, according to MY likeness.” Some will say that God was speaking to the angels in the first part. However, this cannot be. Firstly, it isn’t addressing the switch to third person singular. Unless you want to say that the angels didn’t want to help God, but then they would all be guilty of sinning, and not just those who follow Lucifer. Secondly, there is nowhere in the Bible where angles are described as being made in Gods likeness. This does bring up the question of what it means when it says “likeness,” but I feel like that would be better served in its own post.
In Genesis 11:7-8 (HCSB), we have something very similar. God says “Come, let US go down and confuse their languages so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” And scripture continues “So from there YAHWEH scattered them over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city,” (emphasis mine). Here again, we have a first person plural followed by a third person singular doing the action that the first person plural suggested.
In Genesis 19:24 (HCSB) we have Yahweh (who is on the earth) raining down burning sulfur from Yahweh in heaven. This shows Yahweh being in two places at once, and seems to indicate at least two separate persons (though not necessarily beings). And in Genesis 18:1-5 we have three men visiting Abraham. This could be Yahweh and 2 angels (who then go to Sodom), but they answer Abram in unison, and I have a hard time believing that angels would dare speak when Yahweh is speaking.
In Matthew 28:19
(HCSB) we are told to “baptize them (the disciples we have made) in the NAME of the FATHER, the SON and the HOLY SPIRIT,” (emphasis mine). Here we have a singular name, which I would put forth is Yahweh, but three persons who bare that name. And when you put this together with Matthew 3:16-17 (HCSB), where we see the Son in the water, having just been baptized, and the Spirit descending like a dove, and then we hear the Father from heaven declaring Jesus as His son, we then see that they are three distinct individuals who exist simultaneously and not interchangeably.
There are other texts to show as well, but this blog post is getting long. However, I feel that for now these will suffice. While the word Trinity is not found in the Bible, it is quite clear that the meaning of Trinity, which is a plurality of persons within a singular being, is definitely present in the Bible. I do not know if the bulk of Christians today understand the doctrine, and I’m not sure if in the past those who followed God knew it or understood it either. But it is clearly there, and while I do not feel like you need to believe it to be saved, I do believe that if you have been shown the arguments and then still deny it, then you are in danger of not worshiping the one, true and living God. And if you do not worship the one, true and living God, then you are not saved. Please prayerfully consider these things, and stay tuned for the next installment of this series.
