Shalom and welcome to another edition of The Case for Messiah. I'm here with my good friend and brother Golan Broshi. And today we have a really hot topic, don't we?
Interesting. The Trinity and the Torah. A contradiction or a corroboration? The Trinity and the Torah? Are you kidding me?
Way to win friends and influence people. Okay, so the first question we want to ask is... Well, does the Trinity actually contradict the Hebrew Bible?
And of course, it depends who you ask, because you can ask, it says you ask two Jews, you get at least three opinions. Exactly. So it's interesting that it really does depend on which Jewish scholar you ask. So for instance, the Jewish scholar Michael Wischogrod, worth quoting him at length, he says the most difficult outstanding issue between Judaism and Christianity are the divinity of Jesus, the incarnation, the Trinity, three terms which are not quite synonymous, but all of which assert that Jesus was not only a human being, but also God.
Compared to this claim, all other Christian claims, such as Jesus as the Messiah, become secondary at most. In other words, if there was ever a stumbling block for Jews, he says, this is it. This is the episode, Golan.
This is really, this is it. Make it or break it. Exactly. So, another well-known apologist for rabbinic Judaism, he argues that...
Although belief in the unity of God is taught and declared on virtually every page of the Jewish scriptures, the doctrine of the Trinity is never mentioned anywhere throughout the entire corpus of the Hebrew Bible. Now, moreover, the last thing. Yeah, wow.
Some even claim that. So, one well-known anti-missionary actually even says that the doctrine of the Trinity is even a complete distortion of the New Testament. That the New Testament doesn't teach it either.
Wow. So that's on the one hand. That's some Jewish scholars that say that's on the one hand.
Yes. On the other hand... Well, here's really quite surprising. There's a well-known Jewish scholar.
In fact, he's one of the leading scholars of Hebrew Bible, Professor Benjamin Sommer. Not a Messianic Jew yet. No, no, no, no. He's one of the leading scholars of Hebrew Bible, works with intertextuality, very well known in his field, very well respected. Anybody that does any work in the Hebrew Bible.
And now listen to what he says. He says, classic language of Trinitarian theology, such as mia usia, tres hypostases, that is one nature, three persons, or one substance, three manifestations, applies perfectly well to examples of the Lord's fluidity in the Hebrew Bible, and to the fluidity traditions in Canaan and Mesopotamia. He basically argues that the whole notion of the Trinity is not something foreign to the Hebrew Scriptures at all. And he uses the word fluidity. Fluidity, and we'll talk about that as we go on.
Okay. So, what are the main arguments against this concept that we call Trinity? Yeah, okay.
So, we could pretty much summarize the arguments as the whole notion of the Trinity is a violent hermeneutic to the Hebrew Bible. It's just a simply... It's not there, and it's a gross distortion of what the Hebrew Bible actually says. That's the claim against this concept.
Correct. So, you know, the foundation of the Jewish faith, Shema Yisrael, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. He's one.
He's not three. And he's not one in three or three in one. One is one. Exactly. Hosea 11, verse 9, the verse, For I am God, not a man, the Holy One in your midst.
This verse simply rules out any possibility of God incarnate. And in Isaiah? Several passages in Isaiah.
I'll read Isaiah 43, 10 through 11. My witnesses are you, declares the Lord, my servant, whom I have chosen to the end that you may take thought and believe in me and understand that I am he. Before me, no God was formed. And after me, none shall exist.
None but me, the Lord beside me. None can grant triumph. Yes, so none, they mean it's only one. There's one God.
Well, one, of course, but what they understand by this one is a one that totally rules out any sort of divine plurality. Exactly. And concerning the New Testament, the claim is?
Well, this is so interesting, right? So, the argument is that it's also a violent hermeneutic against the New Testament. So, for instance, the argument that Mark's Christology, Mark is considered by many scholars the earliest gospel, right?
Tradition identifies Matthew as the earlier gospel, but... The claim is that Mark's gospel is the earliest and his Christology is adoptionist. Now what does Christology mean? Christology is what?
A theology of Jesus. And adoptionist means that Jesus was just a man that God adopted. as his son.
In a certain time. Correct. And so the argument is that Mark's Christology is adoptionist. The Synoptic Gospels, Mark 3, Luke 11, Matthew 12 says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable, not blasphemy against the Son, and therefore the Son is not fully divine.
Exactly. Right? The term Trinity isn't even found in the New Testament. It was only coined by Tertullian in the second century.
So they're saying it's a Christian invention. Correct. Exactly.
And then... The argument is that the doctrine of the Trinity wasn't even finalized until the 4th century during the Nicene Creed. So not only it's not in the Hebrew Bible, it's not even in the New. It's much later than the New Testament, they would claim.
A perversion of the Hebrew Bible and a perversion of the New Testament. Okay, so are you ready to show some reasons to back up this concept of the Trinity? Well, here we go.
We're going to jump in, right? several reasons the Trinity is fully compatible with the Torah. And we'll start with the Torah. Exactly. Well, I would say that most of everything that we're going to be doing today is based on the Torah.
And then we'll just simply add to places where the prophets actually affirm or confirm what the Torah actually teaches. And so, the first reason in favor of this unity of plurality or plurality of unity of God, is the Torah's teaching about the mysterious presence of God. And that's a simple question. Where does God dwell?
Where is he? Wow. You know, it is such an important question. And again, Benjamin Sommer actually deals with this in his book, The Bodies of God.
And so the question then becomes, where does God dwell? And there appear to be, according to the Torah, two sanctuaries that exist simultaneously where God dwells in both without. In both places?
At once. At once. At once, without ceasing to be one God. In the Torah.
In the Torah. So, for instance, the tabernacle. The end of Exodus, after Moses constructs the tabernacle, the glory of God, the presence of God, moves from the top of Mount Sinai into the tabernacle. And then it says in Leviticus 1, verse 1, So, God is in the tent of meeting.
It says the Lord, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh. And in fact, in Leviticus 26, 11 through 12, God says, I will establish my abode in your midst and I will not spurn you. I will be ever present.
In Hebrew, hit alachti, which is the same verb used of God's presence in the Garden of Eden. Yeah. I walked, I walked in your midst. I will be your God. You shall be my people.
So, according to the tabernacle texts, God actually lives-With his people. With his people in the tent. The Lord is in the Holy of Holies. On the other hand, according to Deuteronomy, God lives in his heavenly abode.
So, for instance, at the same time, Deuteronomy 26, verse 15, Moses says this to God, look down from your holy abode from heaven and bless your people Israel and the soil you have given to us, a land flowing with milk and honey as you swore to our fathers. And so, here's what's interesting. According to the Torah, God has two dwelling places. He has his heaven at the same time.
But who would argue that, oh, this proves that there are two gods, right? Nobody would argue this. There's something very mysterious about God where he can simultaneously put on tent, he can put on tent and live among us without ceasing to be God above.
And it's not confined only for the Torah. We see not only in the Torah, but also in the other books of the Bible. Okay, the prophets. So here's another amazing, amazing text. 1 Kings 8. It's a pinnacle.
It's an important text. Solomon builds the first temple. He's dedicating the temple. He's praying. He's dedicating the temple.
The presence of God fills the dvir, the holy of holies, right? Let me read the text. When the priests came out of the sanctuary for the cloud had filled the house of the Lord and the priests were not able to remain and perform the service because of the cloud. 1 Kings 8. For the presence of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. Then Solomon declared, listen, the Lord has chosen to abide in a thick cloud.
I have now built for you a stately house, a place where you may dwell forever. So, according to Solomon... Where does the Lord dwell?
The temple. In the temple. He's in the temple. In the Holy of Holies. But throughout his whole prayer of dedication, his whole prayer, he keeps praying to God in his holy place in heaven.
I'll read, there's all sorts of verses, but I'm going to read chapter 8, verse 30. May your eyes be open day and night toward this house, right, the temple, where he dwells, toward the place of which you said, my name shall abide there. his name. May you heed the prayers which your servant will offer toward this place, and when you hear the supplications which your servant and your people is Israel offer toward this place, give heed in your heavenly abode, give heed and pardon. So, is Solomon contradicting himself? God is dwelling in the temple, but Solomon is praying to God in heaven, both at the same time.
At the same time. No contradiction, one God. And who would argue that Solomon is actually teaching there are two gods?
No way, no way. Right? So, according to the Torah, according to the prophets, There's this mysterious presence of God that God can be in one, two, or several places simultaneously, but still be one God.
Yeah, now, this thing about being tabernacling with animal skin, being in the tent of meeting, reminds me a little bit of the Gospel of John, because John uses the word tabernacle in Greek, right? It's amazing, Golan. When you consider the Torah's tabernacle theology, and his divine presence in the heavenly tabernacle and Solomon's theology. How does this differ?
So, according to the Torah, God tabernacles in animal skin, right? In the tent of meeting. In the tent. So, according to John, God tabernacles in human skin.
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, verse 14. And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us and we saw his glory. How is that different than the Torah? So to sum up this part, God is in heaven and God dwells with his people the same time and he's one God.
Exactly. Exactly. There's no contradiction. Okay.
So what about the Torah teaching about God mysteriously, mysterious unity? What about his unity? Once again, you know, when you start to...
look, like if you lift the, what do you say, the hood of the engine, and you start to look at the Torah carefully in the Hebrew, you'll notice that there is this mysterious unity of God. So, if you look at the mysterious unity of God in creation, okay, I realize that, you know, and I've heard different podcasts and teaching, it says in Genesis 126, let us make man in our image. God speaks in a plural and plural manner. And some of the rabbinic apologists are very quick to say, Well, of course, this can't refer to divine plurality.
Rashi. God was speaking to. Okay. According to Rashi, God spoke to the angels, right?
So he consulted the angels. He consulted with the angels. And there are all sorts of explanations to try to explain why God spoke in the plural, but that this verse, of course, wouldn't teach any sort of a divine plurality. So what's the problem with this interpretation? Is that God spoke to the angel.
What's the problem? textually? Well, again and again, we're told that if Christians could only read Hebrew, they would recognize that Jesus can't be the Messiah, that it's a twist.
But Golan, if we actually want to take the Hebrew text seriously, we got to look and say, what is the textually most sensitive reading of this passage? There is no explicit mention of angels. Now, I understand they say, well, God created all the heavenly or the hosts of heaven, okay, at the end of the passage, but...
But that's only inferred. There's no explicit... And they could mean the stars also. Exactly, which is more likely in the context. So, bottom line, there are no explicit mention of angels in the context.
So, who can God talk to? Well, let's look in the passage. So, the question is, okay, is God alone in Genesis chapter 1?
Is He absolutely alone or is there somebody that He could talk to? In other words, we think God is one, but He's not alone. Correct, exactly. And so... God says in verse 26 and 27, let us make man in our image.
And then in verse 27, it's clear that only God created. God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him.
Male and female, he created them. Now let's just look and say, okay, who can be talking? And it's right there in the first two verses.
God is there and the spirit of God is there, right? So a spirit of God is like another agent of God. So there isn't an argument. that the Spirit of God here, it's not the Spirit of God, it's the wind of God. They refer to Genesis chapter 8, verse 1. It's just the wind of God.
But the problem is, is that's a reading that doesn't take seriously the role of wisdom in the creation account. So, there's an identification between the wisdom of God and the Spirit of God throughout the Bible. Scholars have argued, not just Christian scholars, Jewish scholars, show that the whole creation of the world is done as a prefiguration of Moses'creation of the tabernacle. And what's really interesting, if you look at God in Genesis 1, verse 1, and the Spirit of God, the text never actually tells us why the Spirit of God is there. And so you actually have to read on to find out that the Spirit of God is actually identified with God's wisdom.
So in Exodus 31, verses 2 through 5, notice what it says. See, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. I have filled the land of Israel with the Spirit of God.
him with the Spirit of God and wisdom and understanding and knowledge and all kinds of craftsmanship to make artistic designs for the work in gold, etc. And in Hebrew, it's clear that there's an identity between wisdom and the Spirit of God in that verse. Check it out.
Look at every time the Spirit of God or the Spirit is mentioned in the Torah, it's almost always there's an association with the wisdom of God. Even in Isaiah chapter 11, the Spirit of God. Right?
The spirit is associated with wisdom. And so you could say, why is the spirit of God with God in the beginning? Because it's a recognition that God creates the world through his spirit of wisdom. So spirit of wisdom, wisdom created the world.
So God created the world through his wisdom. Now, what's really remarkable is Proverbs actually explicitly identifies the spirit of God as the spirit of wisdom. It's like a midrash.
on Genesis. And not only does the Proverbs identify the Spirit of God as the Spirit of wisdom, but the Proverbs even identifies the Spirit of wisdom as a person that was with God. So, let me read it.
You were referring to Proverbs 8, right? 8, 27 through 31, and it's worth reading. When he establishes the heavens, I was there.
And in the context, this is lady wisdom. When he inscribed a circle on the... face of the deep. By the way, that's the exact same expression in the Hebrew of Genesis 1, verse 2. Of the spirit.
Of the spirit, on the spirit of the deep. When he made firm the skies above, when the springs of the deep became fixed, when he set for the sea its boundaries so that the water would not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him as a master workman, right? And I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in the world, his earth. and having my delight in the sons of men.
So, again, if you look at Genesis 1.26, in the immediate context, you've got God and the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God in... The Spirit of Wisdom. The Spirit of Wisdom in Exodus, and then Proverbs makes this interpretation explicit.
God and His Spirit are together. And it's not the only time the Bible says that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Wisdom, that wisdom created the world. It appears...
other times. Again, that God created the world through wisdom, right? So Proverbs 3.19, the Lord by wisdom founded the earth. Okay.
By understanding established the heavens. Psalm 104 verses 24 and 30. Oh Lord, you, how many are your works in wisdom? You made them all. The earth is full of your possessions. You send forth your spirit.
They are created. Again, this association between the spirit and wisdom. Job 33 verse four, the spirit of God has made me the breath of the almighty gives me. life. And so, the Torah already attributes the divine voices, let us make man in our image. It's explicitly identified as God speaking.
God alone creates. God is one in Genesis chapter one, but he's not alone. He's with the Holy Spirit, with the spirit of wisdom. The spirit of God.
And so, you have already in the very first chapter of the Torah, this mysterious unity of God. Now, what's interesting is you notice that the Hebrew, the ancient Hebrew, tirgumim for Aramaic, notice this. The targumim, the Aramaic translation. So, the Jerusalem Talmud, or sorry, the Jerusalem Targum, Genesis 1-1 and then verse 27, in the beginning with wisdom the Lord created. Here it is.
They're seeing the same thing. And notice verse 27, and the memra of the Lord created. The word. The image. the word.
So who created, according to this ancient Targum? Are you reading from John chapter one or this is? This is just, you know what this is? This is Jewish interpretation of the text that's very accurate and it comes before any polemics with Christians. No, there's another Targum, even more interesting.
So Targum Neofiti, it says this, in the beginning with wisdom. Now what's interesting, the Aramaic says Barad-di Adonai. Now what is Barad-di Adonai? The Son of the Lord.
So it says this, in the beginning with wisdom, the Son of the Lord created the heavens and the earth. And then again in verse 27, and the memra of the Lord created mankind in his image. Wow.
So here we go. So firstly, the mysterious unity of God in the Torah is taught in creation. But the mysterious unity of God is also taught in the revelation of God to his people.
Through a messenger. Through the messenger, the angel of the Lord or the messenger of the Lord. Exodus 3 verses 2 through 6. Yeah. The messenger, Malach, of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire in the midst of the bush.
And he looked and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up. When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush. Now, wait a minute.
And he says, I'm the God of your father, the God of Abraham. So who's... Who's in the bush?
Is it the messenger of the Lord or is it God? Or is it the same thing? Is it?
So, just like God can wear animal skin. the tent of meeting, right? God can wear a bush without ceasing to be God overall. Exactly. So what do you think Sommer would say about that?
Well, again, Sommer... Professor Benjamin Sommer. Professor Benjamin Sommer, again, what I love about him is he's just simply taking the Hebrew text very seriously. Face value. Face value.
And this is what he says. There we are initially told of this appearance to Moses. We were told that a malach appeared to Moses in 3.2.
But in the remainder of the chapter, it is the Lord Himself who converses with the shepherd-turned-prophet. The famous fire in this passage, which burned in the bush without burning the bush, is nothing other than a small-scale manifestation of God. This humble manifestation resembles the larger one that would take place in the same mountain, not long thereafter, when the Israelites received the law at Sinai.
It's clear. The text is really clear. Now, what's interesting is that this is not only in the Torah. We see it. Also in other places in the Bible, there's revelation through a messenger.
Yes, but the messenger is, he has an identity that's separated from God, but he's identified as God himself. And so God's appearance to Manoah, right? The father of Samson, the messenger of the Lord appeared to him.
Oh, I think this is, is this Gideon? Is it Gideon? Sorry, that's what did I say? Oh, that's right, in chapter 6, Gideon.
Because it also happens, by the way, in Judges 13 with the father of Samson. But this is an example about Gideon. So the messenger of the Lord appeared to Gideon, right? And the Lord looked at him and said, okay, we're not going to read the whole passage, but it's worth noting again what Benjamin Summer says about this passage.
The text variously identifies the speaker as the Lord, verses 14 and 16, and the Lord's malach, his messenger, verses 12, 20, and 21. Indeed, Gideon's visitor sometimes speaks in the first person of God and sometimes in the third. One might want to argue. that the Lord was located in heaven and spoke through a lower ranking divine being sent to earth with a message.
But? But it is specifically the Lord who turns his face towards Gideon in verse 14. At the same time, we were told in verse 22 that Gideon saw the Lord's malach, and even though it was the Lord who turned to face Gideon, it was the malach who left the place in verse 21. The text seems self-contradictory only if one insists that an angel, is a being separate from the Lord. On the other hand, if one can understand an angel as a small-scale manifestation of God, or even as a being with whom the Lord self-overlaps, the text coheres perfectly well. In other words, this is how God is appearing to man as a man himself, with this angel, with this messenger.
It's interesting. So, when God makes an appearance, he appears either in a tent, he appears in this messenger, this angel. without ceasing to be God enthroned above.
And this messenger has a bodily figure, looks like a man, like an ish, like a man. It's interesting, and we'll get there, actually. Let me read Benjamin Summer on this malach again, because it's really important.
In many passages, the word malach, right, messenger, means a small-scale manifestation of God's own presence. And the distinction between the messenger and God is murky. The malach in these cases is not a being separate from the Lord.
whom the Lord sent on a mission. Rather, it is part of the deity that can act on its own. So, by saying that there's a mysterious unity to God, to argue for a triune mysterious unity of God, it's not a problem from the Hebrew Bible. Okay, so let me ask you, so does God appear in human flesh to people in the Torah? Do people actually see God as a man?
Yes, yes. And so that's our third reason why we would argue that The Trinity is totally in conformity with what the Torah teaches. If you just read the text, it's obvious. Absolutely.
So, in Genesis 18, I realized that any kind of a polemical reading that's trying to avoid the plain sense of the text, there's all sorts of ways to try to get around the fact that God actually appears to Abraham. But the text actually says, the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting at the tent. door in the heat of the day when he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him.
And when he saw them... Men, yeah, three men. Right?
When he saw, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the Lord and he said, Adonai. With the kamatz? With the kamatz.
The pointing here means that he's referring to the three or one of the three as the Lord. Now, what's really interesting is, again... Summers.
What does Summers say about that? Here's what he says. It is clear that the Lord appears in bodily form to Abraham in this passage. What is less clear is whether all three bodies were the Lord's throughout, or whether all three were the Lord's at the outset of the chapter, but only one of them by its end.
Or whether the other two were merely servants, perhaps human, perhaps divine. who for no clear reason were accompanying the Lord. This visitor clearly is and is not identical with the Lord. More precisely, he is the Lord, but is not all of the Lord, or the only manifestation of the Lord. Rather, he is an avatar, right?
The new movie. A descent of the heavenly God who does not encompass all of that God's substance. So, Summers says that God can appear to Abraham as the man, and he in fact did. But it didn't stop God from being God in heaven at the same time.
Correct. No contradiction, one God. It does not seem that Moses was bothered one bit by this mysterious manifestation of God bodily without ceasing to be God overall.
And by the way, if you refer to Moses, there's another example from Moses himself that wants to see the glory of God. In Exodus 33, verses 18 through 23, Moses said, I pray you, show me your glory. Okay.
And he said, I myself will make all my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show compassion and whom I will show compassion. But he said, you cannot see my face for no man can see me and live. Then the Lord said, behold, there's a place for me and you shall stand there on the rock and it will come about while my glory is passing by that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I've passed by.
Then I will take my hand away and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen. Wow. And Benjamin Summer, again, he says the kavod or the glory here must refer, he actually argues that kavod here means body or some kind of a bodily manifestation, must refer to God's body in Exodus 33. It moves. It has a face, a hand, and a back.
And again, we're always being challenged. You know, if you'd only take the Hebrew text seriously, you guys are trying to read around what the text actually says. Well, here we have a classic example of the text actually showing that God appeared bodily to Moses, but that obviously does not exhaust all who, you know, God is still God overall, God in heaven.
But it seems that Professor Summers is taking it literally and seriously and textually. Yes, exactly, exactly. Okay, so what about others?
Are there any other Jewish sources that affirm the teaching about the mysterious unity of God? And here's what's really remarkable. If you actually take the Jewish sources seriously, you'll actually realize that sources that aren't being polemical with the New Testament actually do affirm this mysterious unity of God. And by the way, we're showing ancient sources before Christianity grew up to be this big religion, so they don't have any reason to be polemic.
Correct, exactly. And so, Targum Ancalos in Deuteronomy 31 is pretty remarkable. So, in verses 3, 6, and 8. Adonai, right, the Lord, your God, He, His word is crossing before you. So how does God manifest His presence?
By His word. By His word. And then again, it says, be courageous and bold, do not fear, do not quake before them. For Adonai, your God, it is He who is going with you. Wait a minute, is it God or is it God's word?
He is not infeable, nor will He abandon you. And Adonai, right, the Lord is the one who is going ahead of you. He, His word will be with you, your support. So the Targum identifies the Lord. God with his word.
With the word, right? Now, what about the Shekhinah, the one we call Shekhinah? So Targum Yonatan takes the same text and identifies the word with God's Shekhinah.
And Shekhinah actually comes from the Hebrew word of tabernacle. Yishkon, yeah, to tabernacle. So God's embodied presence with his people, God's protective presence with his people as they go up into the land is the word of God. And they identified with the Word. So the Shekinah is identified also with the Word.
With the Word. Again, it sounds to me like there's a copying from the Gospel of John. Now, obviously, there's not a copying from the Gospel of John. It just shows that the Gospel of John is fully in line with biblical texts, and it's also fully in line with Jewish thinking that's not intentionally polemical against the New Testament. Exactly.
And it goes in one accord with the Bible, with the Hebrew Bible. Correct. So what we've seen is that... The whole notion of this mysterious unity or triunity of God, the unity of God, is an accurate expression of what the Torah says, right? And the entire Bible, the entire Old Testament.
And now let's address this whole claim that the Trinity is a distortion of the New Testament. Can we find the Trinity or the divinity of Yeshua in the New Testament? Okay, so just a couple of points here, okay?
A couple of really important points. First of all, if you want to talk about the deity or the full deity of Yeshua, Before you even go to the Gospels, let's go to Paul's writings. We know that Paul's letters were written before the Gospels were written. So the earliest documents that we have are Paul's letters. And Paul's Christology is incredibly high.
Pre-70s. And again, when you say Christology, what do you mean? I'm saying that his understanding of who Jesus is. So for instance, let me read Romans, chapter 10 from verse 9. He says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is... Lord, right?
Kurios. And believe in your heart that God raised from the dead, you will be saved. And then he gives the reason why this is so.
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord, Lord here is Jesus. For the same Lord is Lord over all, abounding in riches for all who call on him for, and he quotes Joel, right? Joel 3, verse 5 in the Hebrew. I think it's verse 228 in the English.
Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. He's quoting from Joel, which says, whoever calls on the name of Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh will be saved. And so Paul identifies Yeshua as Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, the Lord.
Wow. Okay. He does the exact same thing in Philippians chapter two, verses 10 and 11. He says, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on the earth and under the earth.
And that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father. Now, Scholars are all agreed that Paul here is quoting Isaiah 45, 23, a passage that talks about the exclusivity of one God. There's only one God to whom every knee will bow. There's only one God to whom every tongue will confess.
And Paul identifies this God with Yeshua. So you want to talk about an early Christology? These letters are way pre-70. These are...
Letters from the 50s. Okay, so Paul obviously saw Yeshua as fully divine. But what about the earliest gospel?
What about Mark? So Mark, again, when we say the earliest gospel, we have to admit that there's a debate. Which gospel is earlier?
Is it Matthew or Mark? But if we even go with Mark, the consensus scholarly view that Mark is the earliest gospel, let's be clear, Mark's Christology is incredibly high. And anybody that would argue that it's not, is really not reading Mark carefully.
Even from the beginning. So look at how Mark begins his gospel, okay? The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, right? Prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight. So who's the voice of one crying in the wilderness?
This is John preparing the way for the who? For the Lord. For the Lord.
And you know what? This is a quotation of Isaiah 40, verse 3. A voice is calling, clear the way for Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, the Lord. And so Mark's gospel, right?
And of course, John is referring to Yeshua, prepare the way for Yeshua. Mark, by this citation, is basically saying the earliest gospel that Yeshua is Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh that has appeared in bodily form. Why would we ever say that Mark's gospel is Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh? Christology is adoptionist.
And there's another good example from Mark with the book of Jonah. Again, so Hebrew scholars, they really do a lot of great work on what's called narrative analogy. Israeli Hebrew scholars, non-believers.
Israeli non-believing scholars, Yair Zakovich, for instance, he notes this analogy between Jesus calming the storm after he falls asleep in the boat and the first chapter of Jonah. Now, I don't want to get into it. We're not going to go too deeply into this.
Bottom line. The bottom line is this. If you look at the parallels between the coming of Jesus, the storm in Mark's gospel and Jonah, you'll notice that Jesus actually not only plays the role of Jonah sleeping in the boat, but when it comes time to calming the storm, he calms the storm.
Now, what's interesting, the disciples ask after Jesus calms the storm, who then is this that even the wind and the whale, wind and the... Sorry, the wind and the sea obey him. The only way you can get the answer to that question is going back to the book of Jonah, chapter 1. Who is it that calms the storm in Jonah? The Lord. The Lord.
And you know what? What we see here is a very, very high Christology because, because if you go back to the Hebrew Bible, The calming of storms, the controlling of weather, it's exclusively God. And so here we have, once again, an incredibly high Christology of Mark.
It's just a different kind of Christology. And this is why the disciples were astonished, right? Because they saw Yeshua operates like God. And in chapter 2 of Mark, who then is this that can forgive sins?
Only God forgives sins. And so, again, to argue that Mark's gospel is adoptionist in its Christology, I'm sorry to say it's just a non-scholarly, it's a very shallow reading of the text. Okay, so what about all this issue about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? What's that all about? Okay, once again, the argument there is that the Synoptic Gospel doesn't have a fully developed Christology.
Jesus isn't fully God because only the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is unforgivable. But if we follow that logic, notice what Matthew says. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. So if this verse proves that Jesus isn't fully God, then it also proves that the Father isn't fully God.
Because God the Father is not mentioned. Correct. So that's just, again, I think that's just, it's just a poor treatment of the text, I'm sorry to say. Okay, so what about the Gospel of Matthew? Okay, the Gospel of Matthew, there's this whole notion of what's called the inclusio of divine identity.
Inclusio means the open. Opening and the closing of a text. So in Matthew 1.23, Jesus is identified as Emmanuel. God is with us. And then in chapter 28, verse 20, I am with you till the end of the age.
In other words, the whole Gospel of Matthew is wrapped in this notion of God being with us in Jesus. In Matthew 11, 28 through 30, Jesus says, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. In all the other parallels to the Torah, in the gospel of Matthew, the fact that Jesus is the giver of rest, you would have to stone Moses for saying that. That would be blasphemy.
But for the fact that we know that Jesus is God with us, he is the giver of rest. You've also got citations in Matthew. which identify Jesus as the Lord.
By the way, Luke also has a high Christology in Acts. He associates that passage in Joel, all who call on the name of the Lord, he identifies the Lord there as Jesus. And so to say that there's a low Christology or a half-baked Christology in the Gospels is just simply a poor reading of the Gospels.
So in the New Testament, you see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God. Yeah, so the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are fully God. Fully God and one God.
And God is one. So, the New Testament has four theological truths. Four. The Father is God.
No one would argue. I think everybody, yeah, everybody agrees with that. Okay. Jesus is God.
And again, you have to do some serious acrobatics, some serious contortion to make the gospel say anything other than Jesus is God with us, okay? So, Jesus is God. And then Acts 5, 3 through 4, for example. The Spirit is fully God. The Holy Spirit is fully God.
It's fully God, but the New Testament does not teach that there are three gods. The New Testament teaches that there's just one God. Amen.
Okay? You can call it whatever you want. The point is the term doesn't matter.
You call it the Trinity, you call it however. The term doesn't matter. What does it matter? Listen, it's really interesting. Summer calls the mysterious unity of God fluidity.
Okay? But he's trying to express... The truths of the Torah, forget about the New Testament, that there is this mysterious unity to God. So let's call it the fluidity, okay?
Mystic Judaism refers to this mysterious unity to God as the Sfirot. Right, the Sfirot and the Shekhinah, okay? Tertullian, okay, he calls it the Trinity.
Israeli believers, and let me ask you, do you think like the Israeli believers in Israel here... do they typically use the word shilush, trinity? No, we say achdut ha'elohim.
Okay, the unity of God. And I think that here in Israel, there's a tendency kind of maybe not to use the word shilush. Not because we disagree with it, but just because it has connotations in our context.
But the truth of the matter is, it does not matter what you call it, as long as you're affirming the Father is fully God. Exactly. Jesus.
Right? The Son is fully God, the Spirit is fully God, and there's one God. And even the logic of this argument that if this term doesn't appear in the Bible, it's not true, well, what about other terms like the oral law? Wow. Does this term appear?
Modern Judaism depends on this. The sefirot. The sefirot.
Exactly. The existence of this supposed oral law. Kabbalah.
Does Kabbalah appear in the? Exactly. So if we go by that logic, we have to get rid of other stuff. Now, again, we were those that... Those that affirm the mysterious unity of God, we mentioned in the beginning of the podcast, are accused of a violent hermeneutic.
But it's interesting, if we're going to talk about a violent hermeneutic, let's be honest. Let's be honest. And we can quote Summer. Benjamin Summer, okay? Again, I'm not...
If anybody wants to refute us in the podcast, they have to actually refute a great Jewish scholar who's not a believer in Jesus. Notice what he says about Jewish hermeneutics. He says, the difference between the Christian, the Jewish model of divine embodiment and the Christian emphasis on incarnation nullifies, indeed overturns an entire tradition of anti-Christian polemic with Judaism. The Maimonidean. Those, you know, the Judaism that affirms Rambam's 13 articles of faith from medieval period, of course, still has the right to reject Christianity's theological model.
But many a modern Jew recognizes the extraordinarily strained nature of the hermeneutic through which Maimonides attempts to deny the corporeality, the embodiment of the biblical and rabbinic God. For such a Jew, Maimonides'rejection would also compel a rejection of most of the written and oral Torahs. It would entail, in other words, the creation of a new religion whose earliest sacred document would be found in the 10th century philosophical writings of Maimonides'predecessor, Saadia Gaon.
In other words, he's saying the Judaism of Maimonides, the Rambam, is closer to the Greek philosophy than to the Hebrew Bible. Modern Judaism's understanding of the one... oneness of God that precludes any plurality is actually not biblical Judaism. It is an embrace of a pagan philosopher.
It's not the plain reading of the text. Aristotle. Exactly.
It's not a plain reading. It is, I'm sorry to say, a violent hermeneutic of the text. And it's a polemic against the messianic interpretation.
Correct. Exactly. Okay, so let's sum up this podcast. Okay. So there are several reasons the Trinity is affirmed by the Torah.
First, The Torah's teachings about God's mysterious presence. God is, where does God live? In heaven. And on earth simultaneously, one God. It's consistent with the Torah's teachings about God's mysterious unity.
He's a unity in plurality. The spirit of God and God in creation. You know, God's, you know, the messenger of the Lord and the Lord.
The Torah also teaches, third, that God appears bodily. As a man. There's no problem with this bodily appearance of God that he actually has some kind of, he can embody himself.
There's no problem there. Okay. So God's mystery of unity is?
Yeah, it's affirmed by the rest of the Hebrew Bible. We've seen that. It's affirmed by post-biblical Jewish sources.
And of course. And it's expressed accurately by the New Testament, regardless of what you call it. And you want to end with a quote from Professor Benjamin Summers.
You ready for this, Kolon? Quote, some Jews regard Christianity's claim to be a monotheistic religion with grave suspicion, both because of the doctrine of the Trinity, how can three equal one, and because of Christianity's core belief that God took bodily form. What I've attempted to point out here is that biblical Israel knew very similar doctrines, and these doctrines did not disappear.
from Judaism after the biblical period. Wow. He says it almost better than us, right?
Better than us. Golan, I pray that this podcast will be a blessing and a challenge for people to take more seriously. text. And so we, again, appeal to our viewers, don't trust us, right?
Don't trust us. That's okay. But go back to the text. Listen to the counter arguments. Study, seek, and you will see that the notion of the mysterious unity of God is fully consistent with the Hebrew scriptures.
Amen. If this touched your heart, will you help pay it forward to reach others who need to hear this message? Partner with our team to bring the gospel to Israel and the nations.