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April 7, 2013 |
| The Trinity in the Old Testament | ||
The trinity nature of God was not revealed to man until Jesus revealed it. But there were many hints of it in the Old Testament - hints that were missed by the Jewish scholars. Because they had missed these they were not prepared to receive Jesus as the Son of God. Instead the things that he said about himself seemed like blasphemy to them.
In this lesson we will take a look at the Trinity and especially the evidence for the Trinity in the Old Testament.
The term 'Trinity' does not appear anywhere in the Bible. It is a term created by man to describe a concept described in the Bible. But it is safe to say that we don't fully understand it.
The term 'Trinity', which comes from Tri-unity, and the term 'Triune' describe a being that is both a single entity and three separate parts. But these three parts are so unified in purpose and nature that they are one.
This is hard for us to understand. From our experience we know that a government with three men as leaders would have three purposes. And we know it would be a government where the three fought against each other for control. This would be a government that does not work well. But in the Trinity of God the three have submitted their individual wills to the unity so completely that they are one.
I think there is a lesson in this for us, that we should strive to work in such unity with God by completely submitting our will to his.
The three parts of the Trinity, whom we know as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are all equal in the sense that they are all God. They have always existed and always will. They were never young and will never get old. Though they are equal in that sense, each has a specific role. But only a simple description is possible here. The Father is the leader. The Son is the messenger, the implementer of the Father's will, and the source of our salvation. The Holy Spirit is our guide and comforter.
"The doctrine of the Trinity is interwoven throughout the entire warp and woof of the Old Testament; it is not merely found in a discrete passage or proof-text here and there. For example, from the beginning to the end of the Old Testament, plural nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives are regularly used for God, at least in the Hebrew text."1
Two common examples of this are the Hebrew words Elohim, meaning god(s), and Adonai, meaning lord(s). These words are used thousands of times in the Old Testament. Both of these have the form of plural words, but in Hebrew that doesn't necessarily mean they are plural. This is similar to English. We add an 's' to words to make them plural but not all words that end in 's' are plural. For example, Jesus, which ends in 's', is not plural but the word 'ducks', which also ends in 's', is plural.
But just as 'ducks' comes in a singular form and a plural form, with and without the 's', Elohim, the plural form comes in a singular form, Eloha. But the Bible consistently uses the plural form.
There are also many cases where God refers to himself using plural pronouns like 'us', 'our', and 'we'.
Genesis 1 26 Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
Genesis 3 22 And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."
Genesis 11 6 The Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
Isaiah 6 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
Isaiah 41 21 "Present your case," says the Lord. "Set forth your arguments," says Jacob's King. 22 "Tell us, you idols, what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were, so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. Or declare to us the things to come, 23 tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear. 24 But you are less than nothing and your works are utterly worthless; whoever chooses you is detestable.
Also various authors and prophets refer to God using plural verbs and pronouns
Genesis 20 13 And when God had me wander from my father's household, I said to her, 'This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, "He is my brother."'"
We can't see it in an English translation but here is a quote describing what is happening in this sentence. "Here the word Elohim is used with a plural verb, (caused me to wander), which is not very usual in the Hebrew language, as this plural noun is generally joined with verbs in the singular number"2. The author is saying that it is more common for a singular verb to be used with Elohim (God) but sometimes a plural verb is used. In English, this would be like us sometimes saying "God is" and sometimes "God are."
There are other examples like this but they are difficult to show here because they are lost in the translation as we see above.
The Old Testament also uses plural titles for God in many places. These tend to be lost in translation as well, and that is the case in this verse.
Ecclesiastes 12 1 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, "I find no pleasure in them"
In the Hebrew text the word Creator is plural. If it had been translated more directly the verse would say "Remember your Creators …" but translators to English make it singular to avoid confusion.
There are also cases in the Old Testament where "God speaks to or about another person who is identified as God or Lord"3
Psalm 110 1 The Lord says to my lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet."
This one is special to Christians because Jesus himself refers to this verse in Matthew 22:41-45
to show the Pharisees that the Messiah would be the Son of God.
Here is another example where God refers to the Messiah and identifies him as God
Malachi 3 1 "I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the Lord Almighty.
There are also examples where the author refers to more than one person as God. An example is shown here
Psalms 45 6 Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. 7 You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.
There are also tantalizing hints of a trinity
Numbers 6 22 The Lord said to Moses, 23 "Tell Aaron and his sons, 'This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:
24 "'"The Lord bless you and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace."'
There are also many references that describe God in different ways which we now understand as the trinity. There are references to God as:
To understand the next section it is necessary to understand that God has a personal name just like you and I have. This name appeared more than 6800 times in the Old Testament but was removed after Jesus' time. They did this from a mistaken desire to keep people from overusing God's name but they recorded every place where they did it. That name is most commonly written Yahweh but instead of reinserting it into the text, most translators, insert the word Lord but in this form, LORD.
The final evidence in this lesson for the Trinity in the text of the Old Testament is the odd appearance of three men who visit Abraham in Genesis 18. When you read this carefully even in English the whole passage is very odd.
The more carefully a person reads this passage the more odd it seems. The only way to resolve it is to accept that Yahweh is a triune being. There can be no doubt that this passage is intended to depict God that way.
Some of the symbols from the Old Testament also hint at a trinity. The Star of David, when correctly drawn, shows triangles, three sided objects.
Another symbol also hints at the trinity. Most people don't realize that the stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written were not thin rectangles with rounded tops, as they are often depicted on TV. They were actually square with a depth that was half the size of a side. Therefore if the two tablets were stacked they would form a cube with all three dimensions being equal.
We've seen that there were many hints in the Old Testament of the Triune nature of God. There is also some evidence that Jewish scholars prior to Jesus' time had some understanding of this. But they were not prepared to accept it when the Messiah arrived. After Jesus was crucified Judaism hardened its views on the nature of God and do not accept any suggestion that God is a triune being.
Muslims, who accept the Old Testament, except for the parts they don't like, also find these triune references to God in the Arabic translations. Arabic is a descendent language from Hebrew so translations preserve even the evidence mentioned above that is lost in English. Therefore they have much of the same evidence on the nature of God, but they reject it as well. They are especially offended by the idea that God had a son.
You now have a way to show them the true nature of God and that Jesus was the Son of God.
1 http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/rogers/ot_trinity.html
2 Clarke's Commentary on the Bible
3 http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/rogers/ot_trinity.html
