Question:
I
have heard Christian missionaries claim that Jesus deliberately
screened or veiled his divine nature on earth, so when he is asked a
question by one of his disciples about the time of the end he can
honestly answer, that no man, not even the Son knows the time of the
end, only the Father. Then, when he says elsewhere that he and the
Father are One, he is speaking about his ontological identity with
the Father. Please comment on this and post it on your web site.
Thank
you.
Answer:
If
the one God of the universe, Creator of the heavens and the earth,
wanted to convey to His people that He alone was God and there was no
other who shared this unique distinction with Him, what words would
He use so that there would be no possibility for error? What phrase
could He have selected so that there would be no chance of
misunderstanding? If you or I wanted to describe the unique oneness
of God in a way that could not be misinterpreted, how would we
express this? Would we not have used the words that Moses reported
God to have said in Deuteronomy 32:39,
“See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides Me . . .”
As
a result of this and many other inspiring affirmations throughout the
Jewish Scriptures,1 faithful
Jews to this day will only worship the One life-giving God of Israel
– alone.
No
prophet in Tanach ever remained silent on this foundational teaching.
As if with one voice, they pleaded with their often-wayward nation
never to compromise their faith for anything other than the
unwavering monotheism that they tirelessly preached. Over and over
again, the Hebrew Bible declared with deliberate clarity in its most
celebrated creeds that the Almighty alone is God, and there is no
other. Nothing could ever be “screened” or “veiled” because
the very survival of the Jewish people depended on it. The Torah
intimately connects the faith in one indivisible God with the
national experience of the Jewish people throughout their long
history. Dreadful suffering was the consequence for any defection
from the uncompromising monotheism that the Almighty demanded of His
people.
Throughout
the Jewish Scriptures, God never “screened or veiled his divine
nature.” In fact, Isaiah unequivocally proclaimed that the Almighty
did not reveal Himself in darkness or in a hidden or veiled fashion.
The prophet, speaking in the Almighty’s name, declares that,
I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob’s descendants, “Seek Me in vain.” I, the Lord, speak the truth; I declare what is right. (Isaiah 45:19)
Although
the 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. Moreover, this doctrine is not to be found anywhere in the New
Testament either because primitive Christianity, in its earliest
stages, was still monotheistic. The authors of the New Testament were
completely unaware that the Church they had fashioned would
eventually embrace a pagan deification of a triune deity. Although
the worship of a three-part godhead was well known and fervently
venerated throughout the Roman Empire and beyond in religious systems
such as Hinduism and Mithraism, it was quite distant from the Judaism
from which Christianity emerged. However, when the Greek and Roman
mind began to dominate the Church, it created a theological disaster
from which Christendom has never recovered. By the end of the fourth
century, the doctrine of the Trinity was firmly in place as a central
tenet of the Church, and strict monotheism was formally rejected by
Vatican councils in Nicea and Constantinople.2
When
Christendom adopted a triune godhead from neighboring triune
religious systems, it spawned a serious conundrum for post-Nicene
Christian apologists. How would they harmonize this new veneration of
Jesus as a being who is of the same substance as the Father with a
New Testament that portrays Jesus as a separate entity, subordinate
to the Father, and created by God? How would they now integrate the
teaching of the Trinity with a New Testament that recognized the
Father alone as God? In essence, how would Christian apologists merge
a first century Christian Bible, which was monotheistic, with a
fourth century Church which was not?
This
task was particularly difficult because throughout the Gospels and
Paul’s letters Jesus never claims to be God. On the contrary, the
New Testament makes it clear that he is not God, but rather an agent
of God, entirely subordinate to the Father. For example, in John
14:28, the author of the fourth Gospel has Jesus declare,
“I go unto the Father, for my Father is greater than I.”
The
example you mentioned illustrates this particularly well. In the Book
of Mark, Jesus is asked by four of his disciples when the Tribulation
period will occur. Jesus responds,
But of that day and that hour knows no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the son, but the Father. (Mark 13:32)
The
problems this verse creates for Trinitarians are staggering. If Jesus
were coequal with the Father, how could the Father have information
that Jesus lacked? That is to say, if Jesus were God manifested in
the flesh, as missionaries contend, how can God not know something?
If somehow the second Person of the godhead didn’t know, how did
the first Person find out? Moreover, if, as some Trinitarians
persist, the son was limited by his human nature, why didn’t the
Holy Spirit know?
Christians
cannot simply explain away this verse by insisting that it was Jesus’
human or humble nature that did not know. This is because the
doctrine of the Trinity does not hold that Jesus was half God and
half man. Rather, Jesus was one hundred percent God and one hundred
percent man. His substance as God was not diminished because of his
human nature. As the ecclesiastical Athanasian Creed3 explicitly
states:
The divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal. What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has.
Few
statements defining the nature of the triune godhead have so plainly
spelled out the nature of the doctrine of the Trinity as does this
durable fourth century creed.
Some
missionaries will argue, as you point out, that Jesus’ statement in
John 10:30, “I and my Father are one,” demonstrates that Jesus
considered himself God. The Greek word ἐν (hen),
meaning “one,” however, does not imply being a part of the same
substance. We see this clearly in John 17:11 and 17:21-22 where Jesus
prays to God that the disciples may be one (ἐν) as are Jesus and
God. Clearly, Jesus is requesting that the disciples be of one
unified purpose, not of the same substance or part of the Trinity.
Moreover,
John 10:30-34 is particularly revealing. The fourth Gospel describes
how when the Jews heard Jesus proclaim, “I and my Father are one,”
they immediately wanted to stone him. When Jesus asks them why they
wanted to kill him, the Jews responded because “you claim to be
God.” Upon hearing this, Jesus asked, “Is it not written in your
Law, ‘I have said you are gods’?” This response is one of the
most important statements in the Book of John, and should at least
give Trinitarians pause.
The
verse is found in Psalm 82:6 where the Bible refers to judges who
teach God’s divine law as gods. This title was bestowed on them
because they were teachers of the Almighty’s divine Law and sacred
Oracles, not because they were actually God in any way. This usage is
quite common in the Jewish Scriptures. For example, in Exodus 7:1
Moses is called a god because he was God’s representative to
Pharaoh. In essence, Jesus’ reply is inconsistent the proposal that
missionaries are seeking to advance. Jesus, as depicted by John, is
explaining that his identification with God is comparable to that of
a Jewish judge.
The
fact remains that no author in the New Testament ever advanced the
doctrine of the Trinity. Many years passed from the time the last
Gospel was published for the Church to promote this alien creed.
Sincerely
yours,
Rabbi
Tovia Singer
SOURCE: http://www.outreachjudaism.org
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