Does the Trinity Contradict the Old Testament?

Revealed Apologetics

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Does the doctrine of the Trinity contradict the Shema now if you're not familiar with the

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Shema Shema comes from the The book of Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4 and it's the confession of monotheism

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Okay, those of you who are familiar with Judaism the Shema is a famous Confession in the

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Old Testament Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad Here O Israel the

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Lord our God is one Okay So you would obviously understand there that that is a confession of monotheism now when we ask the question does the

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Trinity? Contradict the concept of the Shema or the concept of monotheism

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The the answer to that is no. Okay, and the reason for that is that the doctrine of the

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Trinity is monotheistic Christians are Monotheists and so if we believe that Deuteronomy 6 4 teaches monotheism and not just Deuteronomy 6 4

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But you have other places in Scripture where it teaches that there is only one God Christians affirm that and so we need to understand what the doctrine of the

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Trinity is To understand that it's in fact monotheism. It's not polytheism.

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It's not tritheism as Is reflected in say

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Mormonism, for example We believe that there is one being who is God who's revealed himself as three co -eternal simultaneous

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Co -powerful persons. Okay, and So there is one being and three persons

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We make a distinction between being and person now the one being of God is that monotheistic aspect in that sense?

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There is only one God well We believe when God says I alone created that is speaking of the one

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God But this one God is within the Christian conception tri -personal now, why do we believe this? Well, we believe it because we believe that's what the

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Bible teaches as Christians We affirm the Old Testament and the New Testament and we believe that the oneness of God and the plurality of God is taught in Seed form in the

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Old Testament, but is more explicitly Revealed in the New Testament, of course We believe and very clearly and easily demonstrated in the

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New Testament that the Father is called God The Son is called God and the Holy Spirit is called

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God and these three persons Share the same being okay, and so that's very very important to understand

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That is not at all inconsistent with the teaching of monotheism. We are not saying that there's one being

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God and three beings who are God that's that's a contradiction There's a very very careful distinction that needs to be made between the word being and person

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When we speak of the being of God, we are speaking of the the whatness of God Okay, when we're speaking of the persons of God, we are speaking of the triune person.

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We're speaking of the who of God What is God? Well, he's one being creator of all things. Who is

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God Father Son and Holy Spirit? Okay, very very important to keep that in mind now if you don't agree with the doctrine of the

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Trinity fine But it would be inappropriate to call Trinitarian theology

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Not monotheistic it is monotheistic through and through and so you need to be very careful when we're engaging in discussions with those that disagree with Trinitarian Theology it does no good to point to the scriptures that focus on the oneness of God because Trinitarians accept that right we accept that but the

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Trinitarian Theological perspective takes what all of Scripture has to say with regards to the nature of God The being of God and the persons of God.

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Okay now Some might suggest well the word Trinity appears nowhere in the Bible and that's true

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But but neither does the word monotheism, right? The word monotheism doesn't appear in the

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Bible yet based on Deuteronomy 6 for monotheism is clearly taught Okay and elsewhere as many other scriptures that speak that there's speak about there being only one

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God the reality is though when we come to The New Testament with these more explicit texts We see that the

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Father is called God the Son is called God and the Holy Spirit is called God How do you make sense out of that data?

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While at the same time holding the assumption that there is only one God and that's what the Old Testament is taught

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I mean the Old Testament is what the disciples had. They didn't have the New Testament before they it was actually written yet.

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They attributed to Jesus Divine attributes when they understood who he was when they're recording than the

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Gospels we see Jesus taking on the characteristics of Deity and the way that he addressed himself and the way that he addressed others and forgiving sins and things like that so there are a whole big host of reasons why we clearly affirm the deity of Christ, but in affirming the deity of Christ and Affirming the deity of the

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Father and affirming the deity of the Holy Spirit. We're not going to adopt polytheism because that is explicitly

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You know, that's that's not taught at all throughout Scripture But we need to do what we need to take all of what

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Scripture has to say and consider that and that's basically what how? The Trinity was derived the Trinity wasn't invented at the

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Council of Nicaea or you know by some other weird theory That's out there the doctrine of the

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Trinity was derived from Scripture and was later Formulated more formally through the church councils and throughout church history.

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And so in that sense the doctrine of the Trinity is a Developmental doctrine, but it develops from the

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Scripture and as you move throughout church history you have more refined Vocabulary with which we can speak about this concept of there being one

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God but three persons who are also God Okay, so there is no contradiction here a contradiction states that a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time and in The same way you're not saying that there is one being and there are three beings who are

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God, right? That's polytheism. We make that distinction between being and person All right, very very important, of course one could go into more detail with regards to that but just kind of in a thumbnail sketch there is no contradiction between the

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Trinity and The Shema Deuteronomy 6 4 here Oh Israel, the Lord our God is one when

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I read Deuteronomy 6 4 here Oh Israel, the Lord our God is one I say yes and amen any

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Trinitarian worth his salt will say that but at the same time we acknowledge all of what

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Scripture has to say and we take that Very very seriously, you see these confusions oftentimes when we're interacting with Muslims I heard of a debate that was going to be put forth and organized between a

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Christian and a Muslim and the Muslim put forth The proposition for the debate. He says let's debate the topic

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Jesus God or man Okay, that was that was the debate proposition Jesus God or man?

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And of course presumably the Muslim was going to defend the proposition that Jesus was a man Okay a prophet but simply a man and the

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Christian of course would defend the proposition that Jesus is God Okay. Well, what's the problem in that proposition?

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Think about it Jesus God or man? Well, the problem with that is that the proposition is structured with a false dichotomy

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Because it is not God or man for the Christian the Christian affirms that Jesus is both God and man, right?

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Now you might not agree with that, but that's what the Christian affirms We affirm not only that God is one being who exists as three co -eternal simultaneous persons

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Denominated Father Son and Holy Spirit, but with regards to the second person of the Trinity We believe that Jesus is one person with two natures both human and divine again

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You don't have to believe that if you don't accept that position, but that's what the position is We would never argue

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Jesus is God and not man. We affirm both the humanity of Jesus and the divinity of Jesus Okay, and so very very important to keep these concepts in mind before one criticizes of you

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They want to be sure that they're familiar with the perspective so that they can properly interact with it Okay, so to ultimately answer the question for this video does the doctrine of the

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Trinity conflict or contradict? The Shema of Deuteronomy 6 4 and the overall teaching of monotheism in the

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Old Testament The answer is no you have both the unity of God expressed in the Old Testament and interestingly enough in various portions of Scripture There is multiplicity within God and that's a topic for another video.

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Perhaps we can get into more detail with regards to that But we have a more explicit revelation in the

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New Testament and we take all of what Scripture has to say and that's how we Get the doctrine of the Trinity which is in no way in conflict with the

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Old Testament teaching that God is one All right. Well if anyone's Interested in getting into some more details with regards to this topic.

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There are many great resources out there But I would commend to you. I think a fine work by dr James White it over over at Alpha and Omega ministry wrote a book a while back the

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Forgotten Trinity where he Goes through some of these issues as to defining the

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Trinity the biblical Support for the Trinity and related issues So you might want to pick that book up if you haven't already and of course picking up a good old, you know

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Christian systematic theology with a good chapter on the Trinity might do you well if you're interested in this topic and You're interested in understanding it clearly.

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All right Well, I hope that this is helpful and useful for people who are listening and that's all