Is the Trinity confusing to you? Is there one God or many gods? If there is one, how can there be three? This devotion looks at determining how one God can be three and if there are other gods.
Nuggets
- God is all-knowing and all-powerful, so no other god is needed.
- God is above all other gods.
- It is through this Trinity that God reveals Himself to us.
“Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6: 4 CSB)
Moses was still in the early stages of telling the Wilderness Wanderers goodbye. Chapter 6 is a rich chapter.
Right before Moses gives the Wilderness Wanderers the greatest commandment, he tells them that God is One.
But, wait a second. That is just confusing. How can God be One if He is supposed to be a Trinity?
Or is this talking about all of the other gods? Are they real or not?
Okay, Let’s focus on the back of the verse. There is one God.
The Power of One
“… the Lord is one” (Deut. 6: 4 CSB)
I can see that. How can this wonderful complex world have been designed and built by a group? I can see a large construction company building a huge building.
But not this universe.
I was in higher education. It was run by committee. There were a lot of meetings where things didn’t get done. The meetings just took time away from the desk where we could actually get things done.
I can see one God in charge of everything.
Dykes put it this way. He said, “The unity of God is the only religious basis for a moral law of perfect and unwavering righteousness.”
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Can you think of how much inconsistency there would be with more than one Creator? How many contradicting laws would we have? Instead we have a God that doesn’t make mistakes, lie, or change His mind.
- “God’s way is perfect. All the LORD’s promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to him for protection” (Ps. 18: 30 NLT).
- “God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?” (Num. 23: 19 NLT).
How comforting is it that the God Who comforts us is the one who allowed the trial? That shows His control and His love for us.
God is all-knowing and all-powerful. No other god is needed. That’s good, because He has no equal.
But Is God the Only One?
“For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods” (Ps. 95: 3 KJV)
Then I read something that Hodges had written that intrigued me. It sent me chasing a rabbit.
“It is evident in the Old Testament that faith in the unity of God won its way little by little. The best men held it, but the people in general were slow to believe it. Even in the Psalms, God is often spoken of as the greatest of the gods.”
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Oh, yeah. There are verses about God being above all other gods.
But Hodges made it sound like that was just a hold over from the polytheistic days. What did some others have to say? Unfortunately, the sermons associated with verses talking about “God above all god” don’t really get into that.
Barns wrote, “As there can be but one absolute and endless monarchy, so there is but one supreme and independent King.” But he doesn’t discuss other gods.
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Sanderson reminded us there is a spiritual realm that we don’t see. However, like Burns, he doesn’t discuss other gods.
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The Power of Three
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (II Cor. 13: 13 CSB)
What we do have is the Trinity. We have God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.
I loved how Dykes’ defined trinity in Trinity and Unity. He said, “The Trinity of our faith means a distinction of persons within one common indivisible Divine nature. … This doctrine affords a basis for those gracious relations which it has pleased God to sustain towards us in the economy of our salvation.”
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I once heard it described as three individual drops of water. If they were combined, it would be one big drop of water.
We get tripped up when we try to think of them as people. Person is singular, and people are plural.
Hodges pointed out the following. “Some see a trace of this old change out of the polytheistic into the monotheistic idea of God in the fact that in the beginning of the Bible the Hebrew name of God is plural, while the verb which is written with it is singular.” To me, that is a combination of God is One and the Trinity.
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It is through this Trinity that God reveals Himself to us. Hatch wrote, “God reveals Himself to us as a trinity of persons: the eternal Father, of whom we are the children; the eternal Son, who brings back to us our lost sonship; the eternal Spirit, by whom we and all things live. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.”
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Stevens provided the best argument that I read. “If Christ is Divine, and yet, at the same time, can speak of the Father in distinction from Himself, these two facts, taken together, give us both the idea of the unity and that of the distinction between Him and God. But a further fact meets us. Christ speaks of the Holy Spirit as distinct both from the Father and from Himself, and yet ascribes to Him Divine prerogatives and powers. He is ‘another Advocate,’ distinct from Christ (John 14:16). He bears witness of Christ (John 15:26); and His coming to the disciples is conditioned upon the Saviour’s departure (John 16:7).”
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I think of it this way. God is God, but He needed a part of Himself to come down as a sacrifice for our sins.
That is where Jesus came into the picture. Jesus came as a human like us without giving up His divinity. He also came as an example of the obedience for which God was looking. We needed Someone to model our relationship with God.
After Jesus accomplished the plan of salvation, God needed a part of Himself to reside in us. That is where the Holy Spirit fits into the picture.
Making the Connections
One God. Many gods. The Trinity. What is right?
I know there is one God. I believe there is the Trinity.
I don’t know if there really are many gods. I know others believe there is.
I know there are a lot of man made gods. In today’s society, we worship lots of things that aren’t the One true God.
How Do We Apply This?
- We need to believe the One true God loves us and designed the plan of salvation to restore our relationships with Him.
- We need to believe that Jesus sacrificed Himself to accomplish that plan.
- We need to believe that the Holy Spirit prompts us to accept the gift of salvation and will guide us as we grow in our faith in God.
Loving Father. There are things we do not understand — cannot understand because Your ways are higher than our ways (Isa. 55: 8-9). We don’t need to understand. We need to believe. Lord, we believe You are the One true God. We believe Jesus died to pay the price for our sins. We believe the Holy Spirit lives within disciples to teach us Your ways. We are humbled at how much You love us. Amen.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
What do you think?
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Awesome post! Keep up the great work! 🙂
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