Wednesday: In Unity and Equality
However clear the Bible is that God is one (echad), the Bible also talks about the plurality of Persons. Scholars and Bible students through the millennia have seen in many Old Testament texts powerful evidence of the plural nature of God. This truth, as with many others, is more fully revealed in the New Testament.
Read Genesis 1:26, 27. How is God’s plurality revealed here?
This pairing of plural and singular when referring to God also occurs in Genesis 11:7, 8 at the building of the tower of Babel. God Himself speaks again. The “Lord” is mentioned, yet He speaks as one of a group (“Us”).
Read Isaiah 6:8. In what ways do you see the plurality of the “Lord” revealed there, as well?
In the New Testament, how does Peter’s sermon at Pentecost exalt Jesus within the Godhead? (See Acts 2:33.) Peter, a devout monotheistic Jew, and thus a believer in One God, proclaims the full divinity of Christ, now in heaven. In his letter to the Jewish exiles of the dispersion, Peter again communicates evidence of the triune nature of God. (See 1 Pet. 1:1–3.)
How does Paul include the plurality of God as he describes the process of salvation? 2 Cor. 1:20–22. (See also 2 Cor. 13:14.)
With our finite minds, fallen as well, this teaching is not easy to fully grasp. But so what? We are dealing here with the nature of God, the Creator of the universe. How foolish it would be to think that we could fully understand Him, especially when, as humans, we don’t “fully” understand pretty much anything. Dwell on even the “simplest” thing you can think of. How many aspects of it remain beyond your grasp? How much more so with something as grand as the nature of God Himself?
To select a different email delivery time, please click here.
(0)
I appreciate the lessons this week very much and the thought questions. I especially want to comment on the question regarding the character of God, and how we do not “fully grasp. But so what?”
It is so true that we are so finite. God is so far beyond our understanding. We will learn more and more about Him and love Him more and more each day here and throughout eternity.
I don’t fully understand electricity. This is something that I have grown up with all my life. There are amps, watts, and volts. We can collect it from the sun using solar panels. We can generate it from wind, steam, and water devices. And it even comes out of the sky in such an amazing way through lightening that it strikes awe and fear in some. I know it is there. It is a part of my life, I understand parts of it, but there are some things about it that baffle me.
I don’t fully understand magnets, the electromagnetic field, and how exactly gravity keeps us on the earth but doesn’t suck the moon into us. Yes, I know that it is spinning, etc, but still – that is amazing and a bit beyond my FULL understanding - and so many other things. Simple things like amoebas and earthworms even are astounding!
I seriously don’t fully understand my husband or my son. I have lived with one with for 15 years and the other for over 9. I love them both and praise God for having them in my lives, but sometimes they baffle me.
We often don’t even understand ourselves and our own nature.
How could we possibly understand fully God, His Nature, His Plurality and Oneness? We can continue to study, pray for the Truth to be revealed in His Spirit, as He has promised, but we should not demand to know more than He knows is best to give us in His perfect time. By faith we can accept more and more and trust that we will understand more as we continue to walk with Him in His grace and mercy.
He says it, so it must be true. I will walk in trust in His Word, and wait to understand more, when He knows it is time to reveal it, if and when that time comes! It is such a joy to simply trust and follow. It takes such a burden from us.
God is supreme in nature,wisdom and deeds and this is why he started slowly as father and then as Son and through Holy spirit of himself. This was done for us to understand the Father and how he works. working as a group. Trinity is