Your claim is that the Bible teaches that God is three distinct personalities, i.e. the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

In the Old Testament, God's name is mentioned often. It is YHWH. This has been translated as LORD in most English Bibles. However, it is not a title, it is a name...

Exodus 3:15:
God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, `The YHWH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

Exodus 15:1-3
"I will sing to the YHWH, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The YHWH is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him. The YHWH is a man of war; the YHWH is his name.

Exodus 33:19-20 And he said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name `The YHWH'; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But," he said, "you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live."

Deuteronomy 4:12-19 Then the YHWH spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone. And the YHWH commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land which you are going over to possess.
"Therefore take good heed to yourselves. Since you saw no form on the day that the YHWH spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. And beware lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and worship them and serve them, things which the YHWH your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.

Zechariah 14:9
The YHWH will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one YHWH, and his name the only name.

But certainly the Bible also teaches that Jesus (a man) was God, right?

Job 25:2-6 "Dominion and fear are with God; he makes peace in his high heaven. Is there any number to his armies? Upon whom does his light not arise? How then can man be righteous before God? How can he who is born of woman be clean? Behold, even the moon is not bright and the stars are not clean in his sight; how much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm!"

Numbers 23:19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfil it?

Was Jesus really claiming to be the same being as this YHWH?

John 8:28-30 So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him." As he spoke thus, many believed in him.

John 8:42-43 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say?

Yes, you can assume that Jesus' was hinting, and making suggestions that he was God. However, it's obvious to see that he was denying such an idea. The fact is that some of these verses have to be interpreted figuratively, in order to understand them.

Either the YHWH of the Old Testament was speaking figuratively, or Jesus was speaking figuratively. Without the understanding that parts of the Bible are meant to be figurative, it will not make sense at all.

Who do you suppose was speaking figuratively, YHWH or Jesus?

John 16:25
These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs (figuratively): but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs (figuratively), but I shall shew you plainly of the Father.

The time will come when Jesus will speak plainly about WHO? About the Father. About God, about YHWH.

About the plural 'We' used in the Old Testament is a well known issue to anyone who understands the Semetic languages. There is a plural of number, and there is a plural of respect. Even old English uses this, like when the Queen says "We are not amused!"

Using this to prove multiple gods, or multiple persons within God, is not clear enough to overcome the much more exact numerical description of God given in the Bible.

Mark 12:29-30 Jesus answered, "The first is, `Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'

More references that Jesus is God:

Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.

Footnotes:
Isaiah 7:14 Literally God-With-Us

Matthew 1:23
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”

Isaiah 8:8
He will pass through Judah,
He will overflow and pass over,
He will reach up to the neck;
And the stretching out of his wings
Will fill the breadth of Your land, O Immanuel.

Footnotes:
Isaiah 8:8 Literally God-With-Us

@mpdeveloper:


yeah, that's 2 totally different points to me.

- "god created us", yes, i can follow that one and believe in it (not in terms of "he took a rip and made the woman", but something like "he made the universe, now it's onto us to make something out of it").
- "god is everything", i refuse to believe that. and i'd like you to show me a part of the new testament where it's said this way. "god is everything" puts a soul in everything and everyone, assumes a greater principle behind everything that is going on. but there is not, not for me. you HAVE the choice of either slamming your fist into your oppnent's face, or talk to him. there is no god in wars. there is no god in my ipod. and, probably, there is no god in those who claim to be the closest to god and fulfil his wish: fundamentalists, terrorists, racists, the one or the other priest.

Yes, whenever you see LORD in caps in the Old Testament, it is YHWH which in Hebrew is "I Am" which is the covenant name for God between God and Israel (the Jews), but even in the Old Testament God has many names.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/study/misc/name_god.cfm



This is referring to men who are born of man and woman, not Jesus who was born of a woman and conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Genesis 3
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;

This is the very first Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament. God is telling the serpent (Satan) that He is going to put enmity between him and the Seed of the woman. The seed usually comes through the man, so this is not going to be an ordinary man who is to be born.



Yes, Jesus was really claiming to be YHWH. Again Jesus is pointing to the Father (YHWH) and saying that He is sent by the Father and the things He does are of the Father. These very verses that you just quoted clearly show that Jesus is saying that He and the Father are one, that Jesus is equal to the Father, and that Jesus is God.




I am not assuming anything. I know exactly Whom Jesus is refering to and I believe Him. Jesus was not just hinting or suggesting that He is God. The Jewish leaders knew exactly what He was saying. Most of them did not believe Him because they did not know or believe the scriptures as Jesus told them on more than one occasion. That is why they wanted to stone Him. These verses do not need to be and should not be interpreted figuratively to understand them. In fact they should be interpreted literally as YHWH/Jesus means them to be. Yes, sometimes Jesus spoke figuratively. He knows who will and will not believe Him. Jesus said, I am the bread of life. Did He mean He is literally bread? No, He is using the physical to describe the spiritual. Just as we need food for physical life, we need Jesus/God for eternal life. Jesus said, I am the door. Does that mean He is a door? No, He means He is the door (way) to eternal life.



John 14:7 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”
8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.



I have heard this before too and it does not wash. God does not need to use plural words like Eloheim (God), echad (one), We or Us to gain respect. He is God. That's enough. The bible is the word of God and is God breathed, meaning the Holy Spirit filled the prophets so they knew what to write. Either you believe that or you do not. It is as simple as that.




Yes, Jesus wants us to put God first and worship Him alone. Jesus is God.

broozar,

Have you been following this thread at all?

John 1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Believe it or not. We all have the choice.

yes, i have been following, and i usually read before i reply and think twice about if it's worth to contribute. so thanks for you concern.

your quote says, that he made everything (things made through us may count, if you want to), which is fine with me. not that he is everything, which still makes a huge difference to me. "All things were made through Him". not "god dissociated himself into everything and everyone and made it a spiritual, worthy, justified thing/being". or prove me the god in the war on terror or the god in my ipod. and don't tell me again that it's written in john 1.

I do not worship the god of the war on terror or the god of your ipod.

broozar, I owe you an apology. I went back and read mpdeveloper_B's post again. I agree with most of what he said, but I do not know what he meant by God IS everything. Maybe he can explain that. Also, I believe that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, since they are all the one same God, but three persons, all took part as The Creator. Again, I apologize. I am the one who did not read the thread carefully.

no offense taken

since this has become some sort of a Trinity thread, i'd really like to hear your views on the Holy Spirit, what is means to you, how it manifests, and why it is "needed" when there is a God and his Son. The Holy Spirit is probably one of the most interesting, yet hard to understand concepts of the christian religion, and for many it remains unclear why we celebrate Pentecost.

Thank you for being so gracious. I believe the bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is a "person" and equal to God the Father and God the Son. It is a hard concept for even believers to comprehend that there is one God who is three persons. Man is finite and God is infinite, and His thoughts and ways are much higher than ours. I posted some verses earlier in this thread that refer to the Spirit of God/Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and New Testament. In the Old Testament, the Spirit would only indwell believers at certain times for God's purpose. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit began to indwell believers permanently. The filling of the Holy Spirit is something that all New Testament believers can experience on a day to day basis as we obey and walk closely with the Lord by following the leading of the Holy Spirit who indwells us. The Holy Spirit is not an "it". He is the third person of the Godhead. He has always existed with the Father and Son.

The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. The Holy Spirit also enables us to understand the word of God. That is why it is necessary to be saved (born again) to understand the bible.