The One God, the Father, One Man Messiah Translation
by Anthony F. Buzzard
“The Lord our God is one Lord” (as read from the NT Greek, citing the LXX, Greek version of the OT). This is a unitary monotheistic and certainly not a Trinitarian creed. “One” is a quantifier, a simple, mathematical numeral, and God is defined here, as innumerable times in the Hebrew Bible and the NT, as one single divine Lord, one Person, one divine Self, one Yahweh. He is so described by thousands of singular personal pronouns, which as we all know designate a single person. Malachi 2:10 encapsulates with delightful simplicity the totality of the Bible’s view of God as one Person: “Do we not all have one Father? Has not one God created us?”
Mark 12.32: The man replied, “Exactly
right, Teacher. It is true as you said that God is one Person,[1] and there is no other but He.[2]
James 2.19: You believe that God is one Person;[4] you are doing well. Even the demons believe that, and they shudder.
[1]A
plain statement that Jesus was a unitarian and not a Trinitarian!
[2]Neither
Jesus nor the scribe could possibly have imagined God as a Trinity of three
Persons. The concept of a triune God contradicts Jesus at the most fundamental
level and disobeys him, substituting a definition of God which Jesus would
never approve. 1300 occurrences of the word GOD to mean the Father in the NT
simply confirm the easy concept that GOD is a single Person, the Father (cp.
Mal. 2:10; 1 Cor. 8:4-6 where the one God of monotheism is the Father and Jesus
is the one lord Messiah based on Ps. 110:1, where the second lord (adoni)
is never in all 195 occurrences a title of Deity).
[3]God is
one, eis in Greek. In the masculine gender this is the equivalent in
English of “one person.” Dr. James Dunn’s remark is highly revealing: “‘God is
one’ is certainly intended as an evocation of the basic creed of Jewish
monotheism, ‘The Lord our God is one Lord’ (Deut. 6:4). Paul takes it up again
in 1 Cor. 8:6; cp. Mark 12:29 = Deut. 6:4; James 2:19, ‘God is one.’” Dunn
apparently sees no difficulty with the fact that this admitted Jewish
monotheism is not that of the Church. How is it that the Church has abandoned
the Jewish unitary non-Trinitarian monotheism of Israel and of Jesus?
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