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The Lord is One!

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“Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One!”  Deuteronomy 6:4 NKJV.

Called Shema by orthodox Jews, after the first word, “Hear,” this famous passage supports the Trinitarian concept of deity—the Lord (Jehovah) our God (Elohim) is one Lord, the one echad, expressing compound unity, not yahid, meaning a single one. He alone to whom the name of Jehovah (Yahweh, “the self-existing One”) belongs is absolutely God (Ex. 3:14).  “Hear, O Israel: YHVH is God, YHVH alone is God,”is also an acceptable translation. good-evening-music

It is at once a testimony against Unitarianism as well as polytheism.

Because He is the one and only God, of one eternal, uncreated essence, yet manifested tripersonally as Scripture shows. He must be loved by the creature (us ins) with the whole being: heart, soul, (mind, will and emotions) and might (v.5), Jesus added the “mind” (Mark 12:30).

We who believe today know this same Yahweh, Israel Redeemer, as our Redeemer, who in the process of time became incarnate and died in our place. “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

One, echad, Strong’s # 259: One, a unit; united; unity. The root of echad is achad, to bring together, to unify; to collect one’s thoughts. Echad paints a range of meaning as “one” does in English, from the very narrowest sense (one and one only, as in Ecc.9:18, one sinner destroys much good”) to the broadest sense (one made up of many, as in Gen.2:24, where a man and his wife “shall become one flesh”).

The foundational truth for the redemption of the world is that there is one God who creates and redeems, and yet the NT shows that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Compare the unity of God to the unity of man made in His image: Man is comprised of spirit, soul and body (1 Thes. 5:23). Man is not three “beings” but “one being” with physical, emotional, and spiritual elements.deu-6-4-web-watermarked

The word God is used here in its plural form in the Hebrew text. So, our God, the Lord is one likely emphasizes the Christian doctrine of the trinity, three Persons of the same substance in the one Godhead; this understanding, however, would not have been apparent to the people of the OT.


Filed under: Christianity, Comment, Commentary, Light from the Pot, Nuggets, Spirit,soul,and body, Theology, Word Study, word study Greek

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