Considering Monotheism’s Limitations

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Considering Monotheism’s Limitations

Both Judaic and Christian Persuasions profess to be ‘Monotheistic’, yet present very Different Conceptualizations. Are there Biblical Answers to the many Enigmatic Problems we Encounter in these Contrasting Explanations?

And Secondly, Is the Truth allowed Adequate Accommodation?

Every ‘respected’ religion within Christianity and Judaism espouses and affirms being monotheistic. Yet, there is wide divergence of opinion as to just what that term means. Average believers, especial-ly those among Christian persuasions, if pressed, are unable to provide suitable or logical explana-tions of the theological position they claim so emphatically to espouse.
A Divine Mystery
We have operating within religious societies a discipline which shapes our conceptualization of God. Among those who are ‘strict’ monotheists, those allowing that there is but One God, in other words, God as just a single Being, they have the easier situation to conceive of and explain, though much also has to be ‘explained away’. It is the Christian persuasions, those which accept the New Testament and its clearly stated interrelation and interaction between Beings, who find themselves with the more difficult position to explain yet remaining within the limitations of that discipline. This form of what is identified also as monotheism portrays a group of ‘Persons’ comprising the same Divine Being. The more deeply the student delves into the accepted belief system, the more it becomes obvious why Christian Theologians will tend to decline offering specifics, preferring rather to call the matter a ‘Divine Mystery’.
What we have in religion today, and since the first century, is a conceptual configuration that defies clear explanation and can even disallow Biblical Truth. How did this come to be?
Law versus Love
Beside remaining ‘within the box’ of monotheistic discipline, we have other issues to accommodate. Not the least of which is the common supposition that the God of the Old Testament is a different Being than the God of the New. Most people have accepted the simple premise that the God of the Old Testament had a very different nature than the God of the New. One imposed the Law where the other is regarded as having ‘done away’ with it! The God of the Old is seen as being very stern toward humankind while Jesus of the New is the much kinder: very different personalities. So where a Trinitarian might attempt to explain God as a single Being, but who manifests Himself in any of three ‘hypostases’,^¹ we can identify one major problem already if the ‘natures’ of these two pre-sentations are so drastically different. Bad enough to explain how three persons are always one Person, but then if two of these also have very different natures…? As is obvious, this casual presumption creates havoc with both the strict monotheist but especially the Trinitarian. Few, it seems, have thought this perception through adequately.
The Tail Wags the Dog?
In many ‘scientific’ fields, before much data is accumulated, the researchers will set forth a theory, based on the best information available, and then revise or substantiate their original theory by the data that’s gathered. Not all fields operate that way, especially those where theological issues are in- volved. In ‘theological’ sciences (or God rejecting fields) the typical approach is to hold the original theory as being sacrosanct, despite the facts, rather than admit to the possible existence of God. (A classic example is the ‘intelligent design’ debate. Here we have enormous evidence of intelligent design, but it’s ruled-out, where there are no ‘real missing links’ after all these years, but we must still teach evolutionary theory as though there were!)
What is obvious regarding the monotheism issue is: Mankind settled upon a theory, then developed a concept, then invented a new name for the concept, then gave definition to that name in accordance with his concept. Now he imposes that definition back onto every other item of evidence. The theory is regarded as though it was original truth, though it remains man-made and man-defined. Where the whole process went amiss is when the theory, once pronounced as ‘dogma’ was no longer amenable to any evidence to the contrary. Simply put, if any evidence differs from the now ‘accepted’ position, it must be rejected. Nothing is ‘verifiable’ that falls outside of the established premise.
“Monotheism” is found in pagan religion as much as in Judaic religions. Examples: Babylon and for a time Egypt under Akhenaton (the ‘heretic’ phar-aoh) who was contemporary with King Saul. (See the book: Pharaohs and Kings by David M. Rohl) ^² (That means Psalm 110 was written at about the end of Akhenaton’s reign! There are Amarna letters from King Saul’s fading administration in the British Museum which make pleas for help from Akhenaton against David’s forces. So David would have been familiar with what monotheism was when he wrote in Psalm 110 of one God Being speaking to another.) Bottom line here: Every form of ‘monotheism’ is false, except for the one that supposedly originated among the Israelites and which identifies with the God of Israel: YHWH!?
The ‘Scientific’ Method
Evolutionists have done the same thing as religion-ists, yet they’re incredulous when someone suggests that their vast dating structure is in error. What most unsuspecting students are unaware of is that evolutionists date their fossil finds by means of the strata in which it is found. And then age the strata in which the fossil is found by the fossil found within it! Roundy, roundy, roundy, round!! Discovered evidence is made to fit the hardened theory. If it can’t fit, then it’s rejected. They’ve determined absolutely that the Earth is 3 billion years old, when they really don’t have any verifi-able evidence of their supposed fact. But, it must be, because they need it to be! This is how the human mind works, especially when it is set upon rejecting God and revealed truth, even obvious truth. (e.g. Romans 1:28)
But then, everything is subsequently accepted or rejected based solely on its being in conformity to that man-imposed, intellectual, God-disregarding definition.
We need to see Satan’s hand in this! The narrow Judaic definition of monotheism excludes a truth. The Christian definition of monotheism (Trinitar-ianism) though modified from the earlier premise, also excludes truths. The early Church was not Trinitarian. Institutional theology has wedged itself into a seemingly inextricable double-bind where both positions are opposed to some Truth! We also have people with different conceptions who define the word differently. A Jewish-defined monotheism is quite different than a Catholic- defined monotheism! Now what?
What do we do when a point of evident Biblical Truth doesn’t conform exactly to the ‘monotheistic definition’ as the majority define it? (Then again, the majority are the Catholics and Protestants, and we know they define monotheism as a Trinity of Beings!)
But, what do we do? What is ‘sacred’? Do we hold to the original conception and reject any and all non-corroborating evidence, or do we honestly allow the evidence to factor into and even modify the original theory? It’s a matter of intellectual honesty. Something not always present in science and too often not in theology!
A Startling Announcement
Monotheism seemed to serve Israel well for all the years prior to the first century. After all, they only dealt with what seemed to them as just one single Being. Though there were scriptural ‘suggestions’ here and there that could have indicated otherwise, most of those had been debated, explained away, minimized, or even ‘emended out’ of their scrip-tures by the second century BC. ^³ The issue was largely calmed and dormant until the fall of 5 BC, when a certain infant was brought to the Temple in Jerusalem for presentation to the Lord. This was forty days after His birth. (Lev. 12:4) (The ‘Wise Men’ had not yet arrived in the area so it was still safe to do this.)
At that occasion, an elderly man and a 110 year old woman were inspired to appear in the Temple, the former making pronouncements very unsettling to the priests then in power, by referring to certain prophesied political eventualities, and she to redemptive matters. ^⁴ (Luke 2:25-38) It was here announced in official circles that this individual would restructure the world political scene and was Israel’s Redeemer. This was noted, as evidenced by the fact that it was written about in Luke’s account more than half a century later! Simeon’s prophecy included an obvious reference to Psalm 110:5-7, which is just after the place that says: “you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek”!
It was at this point that a new set of dynamics began to impact the belief system then in place, the reverberations of which we still feel today.
Later, official representatives from Parthia with their escorts alarmed the area when they entered Judea and enquired of Herod as to the location of the ‘King’ whose star they had seen from their homeland some time before. The priests were consulted and decided to reveal to Herod what they knew. When these Megistanes returned back to their own land another way, disregarding Herod’s request for a report, Herod then sent armed forces to Bethlehem to kill all infants there under two years of age. Herod died in the winter of 4 BC ^⁵ at his winter palace in Jericho, so we know this had to be prior to that.
Having been warned of the situation after the Magi’s departure, the young family then sought

refuge in Egypt until Herod had died.

What Were they Thinking?
We have to wonder if the priests’ awareness of the prophecy by Simeon in any way affected their decision to betray the location of this ‘child’ to the wickedly jealous Herod. Did they expect Simeon’s reference to His being ‘pierced through’ ^⁶ would be facilitated by this? No doubt this justification was offered later, after Herod had issued the order to kill all Bethlehem’s young children. After all, this child could be approaching the right age to be offered as a Paschal Sacrifice and the season was drawing near! (Ex. 12:5) What we do know is that they ‘gave it up’ when they could have kept the matter secret. Their first loyalty was to Herod! A second consideration was that Herod, about that time, had killed one High Priest and replaced him with another! (This is recorded in the same place referenced in Josephus below, left column.) The message to the priesthood: Don’t mess with Herod!
Things remained relatively quiet for the next eleven years, until the Passover season of AD 9 when a twelve year old in the Temple engaged the scholars of the day, the ‘doctors of the law’, listening to what they had to say and astounding them with his responses. It isn’t stated what matters were discus-sed, except for one clue: that given at the very end. He made it clear that these exchanges had been His Father’s business! (He didn’t say “Our Father’s business!) At the time, the scholars didn’t fathom the implications, ^⁷ but it was the opening to many similar assertions that were to come! This lad’s true Father was a Being in the background, that He was destined to reveal as had never been before: A Being who was NOT their Father, ^⁸ but was His Father, who they’d never heard or seen at any time. The True Father was an unknown entity in their day to them.
The GOD of the Old Testament

If that wasn’t enough, Jesus later introduced another assertion: that He was alive and present in the days of the Patriarchs: Abraham’s for example. (Jn 8:58) They thought that “the Father” was their God. But Jesus assured them that He wasn’t! Not only on account of their belief system as it was revealed through their actions, but also in practical fact! The Being they’d known in history and in their scriptures was NOT that Being! The True Father was to become known only to those to whom He would be revealed! ^⁹

This formidable premise leads us to the obvious question. Then, who WAS that Being known thru the pages of the Old Testament?
It is the answer to this question, found in the pages of the Bible, Old Testament and New, that were provocative then and remain so today among some God worshippers.
They Testify of ME!
The common perception still in existence today was very much alive in the first century also. The Jews thought they knew who God was. But it was the revelation of another Being, one concealed from their awareness from the beginning, and one who they had already rejected, whose reality made necessary a revision to their conceptual belief system. Not something they were disposed to do. Tradition after all!
Of all the issues that came to the fore in the New Testament Era, one in particular stood out, and that one centered around the identity of the person of Jesus Christ. In fact, it was the issue that led to His being rejected and ultimately condemned to death. Some might say that it was the abrogation of the Law that was most controversial (the very thing Jesus said NOT to even think! ) ^¹⁰ but it was not. It was His making Himself equal with God that first emerged as a life threatening confron-tation. (John 5:18, Phil. 2:6)
You see, the religious establishment thought their Scriptures referred to a Being they regarded as their Father. Jesus said plainly that the scriptures, even those written by Moses, were speaking of HIM! “Search the scriptures; for in them you think

you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And you will not come to me that you

might have life.” (John 5:39-40) Now, this is a pro-

found passage, yet so many read right on by what it

plainly says. Not only is it alleging that the Old Testament wrote of the person of the Son, but that He was the God Being that is found all through it. Notice, they thought they could obtain eternal life from the Being they read of in the Old Testament. Yet, Jesus said He was the One thru whom that Life comes. Thus doubly affirming the statement as to His identity. HE was that God identified in the Old Testament!!
Earlier, He had spoken to them regarding the Sab-bath. He said to them that He was the Lord of the Sabbath Day. (Matt. 12:8, Mk. 2:28, Lk. 6:5) “For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath Day.” Most today regard this as encouragement to disre-gard Sabbathkeeping. In fact, it is a revelation far more profound than that. In His statement He re-veals a fact consistent with other statements, that the Lord the religious Jews thought they worship-ped by keeping the Sabbath, that Lord was the Son of man. HE was that Lord! In other places we find that He was the one who created the Sabbath AND the ‘spiritual rest’ it pictures. In Hebrews 4, the author recognizes who it is who’s offering mankind entrance into His Rest. It was (the one who later became) Jesus! “For He spoke in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all His works.…Seeing there-fore it remains that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief.…For if Jesus had given them rest, then He wouldn’t have afterward spoken of another day.” (Heb. 4:4,6,8) God created the Sab-bath by resting. (Gen. 2:2-3) But here we find that it was Jesus who offered His Rest to His chosen people of old. He was that Lord!
In the verses from Hebrews 4 quoted above there is a quote from David in Psalm 95:6-11. David identi-fies the One speaking as the LORD (YHWH). He is the one who made us, he says in verse 6. It’s the LORD our God who disallowed them entrance into His Rest! Jesus therefore must be YHWH!
Jesus was the Creator. “Without Him was not any-thing made that was made”. (John 1:3) He created the Sabbath Day making it Holy as well. “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and

the world knew Him not.” (v. 10)
David later wrote that the Lord at the LORD’s right

hand is LORD also! (Psalm 110: compare v.1 with v. 5) (Note here: The Sopherim of the second cen-tury BC changed their texts to ‘emend out’ the clear reference to the one who the LORD is talking to, instructing Him to be seated at His own right hand. Verse 5 originally had YHWH (LORD) where we today see Adonai (Lord). It was this reference, when uttered in their presence, with its obvious point, that caused such murderous reaction.) Jesus was to sit at the LORD’s right hand and be known as LORD Himself when so seated. (We have to understand that He was restored to being YHWH, knowing that He was the Creator who left His Spirit existence to take on a physical existence for the suffering of death. “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name. (Phil. 2:6-9))

This Being left His pre-existing state of being! He took on a form He didn’t have previously. He was later exalted to His former Spiritual existence, re-gaining a pre-eminence appropriate to His accom-plishment. (v. 11) “And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father.” (Apparently the Father isn’t threatened by the Son’s ‘competition’!)
This situation being the answer to Jesus’ prayer on that Passover evening: “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with you before the world was.” (John 17:5)
Eternal is His Name
The primary name by which Israel knew their God was the name YHWH, (Yahweh). The name means the self-existing one, “the Eternal”. Not all that dissimilar to the name used only by Daniel in his Chapter 7: The Ancient of Days. Like what we see in Psalm 110, Daniel shows the Son of man as also being the Ancient of Days. In verse 13 we see the Son of man ascending up thru the clouds of heaven to be presented before the Ancient of Days. But in verses 9 and 22 it is inescapable that the one we know as the Son of man is also the Ancient of Days. This ‘other’ Ancient of Days is to rule the nations on earth with His Saints. Verses 9-10 and 21-22 correlate to each other, but for a time the other Being existed as the Son of man! (v.13-14) ^¹¹
It was this subtlety that Jesus knew would provoke a strong reaction at His trial. That’s why He posed a blend of Psalm 110:1 with Daniel 7:13 as His response to the High Priests pointed demand. (Mt.26:64, Mk.14:62) He was dead before that day was ended! The point was very clear to them! Obviously by the result, we can see their persua-sion regarding the possibility of a second Being being a God also. It violated their ‘monotheistic’ definition, and they would not consider changing it.

So their rigid monotheistic definition proved to be the discipline that caused them to reject their true Messiah and Savior!

Unto Us a Child is Born
We have to wonder how such a position came to be so rigidly implanted, especially considering such clear and specific prophecies as Isaiah 9:6-7. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. Lk. 1.32, 33 The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.” It seems this one has it all! Who is that son? Is He a son of man, or of God? This Son is called GOD! How can someone of human origin be God? He must be a Son of God in order to be referred to as the Mighty God. This same Being is called everlasting Father! A descendant of King David who will sit upon David’s throne in His Kingdom! This ‘Son’ in another context is also known as a ‘Father’. (He with His Bride will also be parents to those ‘child-ren’ called in and after the millennial age.) It’s all here! Do we understand what we’re reading?
On what basis did the Jewish theologians reject all

these potent declarations? It had to be the same: their monotheistic definition. Functioning to ob-struct God’s revealed Truth! What will it take to fix this?

The ROCK in the Wilderness
Few places in the New Testament are as blatantly explicit as is 1^st Corinthians 10 in making clear the identity of Jesus Christ as being the God of the Old Testament. Not only was Jesus represented in that manna that sustained them for 40 years, ^¹² but He was also Israel’s ROCK. “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.” (Ps.18:2) “…I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the Rock, his work is perfect...” (De.18:3-4) “There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none besides thee: neither is there any rock like our God.” (1^st Sam.2:2) “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliver-er; the God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.” (2^nd Sam.22:2-3) “The LORD liveth; and blessed be my rock; and exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation.” (2^nd Sam.22:47) “The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.” (2^nd Sam.23:3)
From these we can see that Israel’s Rock was the LORD (YHWH). But Paul affirmed that Rock was Christ! “Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.” (1^st Cor.10:1-4) The Rock was Christ, the Rock was Yahweh, (YHWH) therefore, Christ must be Yahweh! Jesus Christ was the God of the Old Testament!
But at some point in time, the Rock of Israel’s salvation became a rock of offense. “And He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel,.” (Isa.8:14) ^¹³ “As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and a rock of offence: and whoso-ever believes on Him shall not be ashamed.” (Rom.9:33 (see also 1^st Pe.2:8)) The instrument of that happening was Israel’s strict monotheistic conception. To them, God was just one single Being. By that, they were compelled to reject the Anointed of God. He was their LORD, (YHWH) the prototype, THE ONE who would come as an infant, born into the human kind. But that was outside their accepted conceptual parameters, despite the explicit prophecies given above.
So, Who is Elohim?
If that wasn’t enough, we have another common name applied to God (one that is also commonly applied to other gods) ^¹⁴ the name Elohim. A plural form. Even as early as Genesis 1, we see more than one Being determining between themselves, “Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness:” …the translators recognizing the fact of plurality in their choice of wording.
Being that the name Elohim is not applied exclu-sively to the true God, we must recognize that it isn’t God’s proper name. Secondly, we must allow that the name Elohim can apply to a congregate of beings. It appears that way so many times in the Hebrew Scriptures. The more formidable question is to ask why Elohim is rendered as though it were singular most of the time? Again, the ‘accepted’ definition of monotheism accounts for it.
We have similar words in our language. For example, the word breed. It’s singular, but we recognize the implicit sense of it involving more than one individual member, yet restricting those members to a distinct kind, excluding others not of that breed. You don’t have a breed without there being at least one breeding pair and offspring. Elohim is a similar term. Only our stubborn dedi-cation to a Monotheistic Discipline would prevent us from conceiving of its range of meaning properly.
In the Elohim there is presently more than one Being. Eventually, there’ll be uncounted numbers.
Jesus is God
A near-lethal confrontation between Jesus and the Jews in the Temple during the winter of His final year, (John 10:34-36), addressed this issue in part: “The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, Ye are gods’ Ps. 82.6 ? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?” Jesus was here quoting Psalm 82:6, which says, “I have said, You are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.” (‘gods’ here is elohim! #430.) What He meant is further clarified in the statement, ‘all are children of the most High’.
Paul’s discourse in Romans 8:19-23 & 29 has, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifes-tation of the sons of God. … because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. …For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren.”

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12) These becoming God’s kind. This power is not something we have inherent, it is something that must be given! It says of those who have become converted (have received

Him), there is something beyond that, which we have the inherent power to become, but have not attained, just by becoming converted. “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God:… Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1^st John 3:1-2) There’s a future manifestation of the glorified form: “...the whole creation groans…waiting for the manifest-ation of the sons of God.” (Romans 8:22 & 19)
Elohim is also a reproducing kind! A congealing Family! “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,..” (Eph. 3:14) “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power…. For he hath put all things under his feet. (Ps.110:1) But when he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” (1^st Cor. 15:24, 27-28)
A Full Inclusion
The term, ‘the whole family’, indicates more than just those two, the Father and the Son! There is a point in time, beyond the millennial age and its contribution to the ranks of Salvation, when all beings living will be brought into that same ‘one-ness’ Jesus requested for His Saints that Passover evening we read of in John 17. “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.…And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was…Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us:… And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” (v. 1-3, 5, 20-23)
The ‘strict monotheist’ should take the time to consider these statements of Jesus very carefully. These things could not be stated, they could not be conceptualized, unless there were two Beings interacting and inter-relating with one another.
The ‘Trinitarian’ monotheist should consider them as well. The Father and the Son can not be the same Being! One left the glorified state to become flesh, the other did not. A physical Being can not be a ‘hypostasis’ of a Spirit Being! The God of the Old Testament can’t be a different Being than the God of the New, having different personalities and different regard for the Law! These proposals just do not compute!
What we need to face is the question of what do we regard as the most important, Biblical revelation or religious convention? On what foundation is your faith based?
So, we have the matter of Jesus being the God of the Old Testament, the one who was the Creator and the one who brought Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness. We have the matter of the plurality of the Elohim, with one Being speaking to another. We see both having the same personal names; (Yahweh, the Ancient of Days, the Father) with one having sent the other, and the other being restored to the Glorified state from which He had divested Himself. We have the inclusion of called individuals being added into the God-family, being called the sons of God, being given the power to actually become so, and in the distant future we anticipate a reconciliation of all Beings in heaven and earth into a unified existence. (1^st Cor. 15:28)

“Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature...” (2^ndPeter 1:4)

It is abundantly clear that the fundamental parame-ters of monotheism, as they exist in both the vari-ous Jewish and Christian denominations, do not adequately accommodate all these things.
Jesus is LORD, the God of the Old Testament.
The Father as we know Him today was not known specifically to Israel prior to Yahweh having come and revealing Him.
Elohim is a plural word and is translated plural everywhere except when referring to our God.
The ONE Being in the Bible was that one who became Jesus Christ, so if there is only One God, as some allege, it is Christ. We are thus forced to reject the Father, if we must limit the number of Beings, because the God of the Old Testament, the One who Created, who gave the Law, who spoke to and even appeared to various individuals, was the one who became Jesus Christ! Of the Father, Jesus said, “You have neither heard His voice at any time, or seen His shape.” (John 5:37) John wrote, in 1^st John 1:1-2, “That which was from the begin-ning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father…”)
Which of these, if any, are allowed under mono-theism’s ‘strict’ definition, or under its ‘trinitarian’ definition? Are we willing to open our conceptual-izations sufficiently to accommodate these Biblical Truths, or is that for later? (Rom.11:25 & 32) Ω
Suggested Reading on Related Topics:
“Who IS the God of the Old Testament?”

“Who is Elohim?”

“Hear O Israel, the LORD is One”

“The SHEMA in the New Testament”

“The Deadly Revelation of Psalm 110”

“The Hypostasis Hoax”

“And ALL Israel Shall be Saved”

“The 134 Emendations of the Sopherim”

1 A Greek word borrowed from Hebrews 1:3, mis-translated in that one place as ‘person’, where it more correctly means substantiation, as we can see from the other places Paul uses the word. See my paper on “The Hypostasis Hoax” for more on this important matter.

2 This book is available in some public libraries. Crown Publishers, New York, 1995, ISBN: 0-517-70315-7 D.M.R. cuts thru the Egyptologists fogscreen created to cast doubts upon the Bible by mis-aligning Egyptian chronology from datable Biblical chronology.

3 See the article “The 134 Emendations of the Sopherim”

4 Did Simeon represent the OT and Anna the New?

5 Josephus records the time of Herod’s death, referencing it to an eclipse that occurred shortly before. This eclipse has been positively dated to the fall of 5 BC, shortly after the “Fast” (Tishri 10) of that year. See Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVII, Chapter 6, Paragraph 4 & footnote.

6 Luke 2:35 “(Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,)” as would these other heads of state. (Ps.110:5&6)

7 Luke 2:49-50 “…and they understood not the saying…”

8 John 5:37, 8:16-19, 29, 42,

9 John 6:46, Matt. 11:27, Luke 10:22, John 1:18

10 Matthew 5:17

11 The date of this event is likely ‘Wave Sheaf Day’, Sunday morning after His resurrection, Abib 17. He had to be alive in the Spirit, mission completed, in order to be presented before God’s Throne for official acceptance.

12 John 6:31-41 “Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. …The Jews then murmured at Him, because He said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.”

13 My article “And So, All Israel Shall be Saved” addresses the blindness that affects both houses to the present day and what hope those who have died, concluded under blindness, have in the resurrections.

14 The overwhelming majority of times the word God occurs in the Old Testament it is from Strong’s #430, and is rendered in the singular. However, some 216 times the same word is rendered gods (plural, small g) it is also #430. The first such instance is Genesis 3:5 “For God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” What accounts for it being rendered in the singular in one application but plural when alluding to any other than our God? Both the first and last words of Psalm 82:6 are elohim!

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