Do the Old and New Testaments really talk about the same God? Not according to Orthodox Jews. In fact, they would insist that the testaments do not even agree on the general concept of God.
Even though historically Christianity grew out of Judaism after a certain sect of Jews accepted Jesus as their promised Messiah, it is commonly asserted that the Old and New Testaments are portraying completely different deities. This point was driven home to me recently by a man who watched my testimony on television and took issue with my claim that one could be both a Jew and a Christian at the same time. He also pointed out that the Messiah never identified himself as God and that there was no teaching of the Trinity in the Old Testament.
“The Torah never ever said Meshuah (Messiah) would be a man-god or Trinity.”
While the term “Torah” technically refers to the first five books of the Bible, it is often used more informally in the broader sense of the entire Old Testament (or Tannach as Orthodox Jews would prefer to call it.) This is apparently the intended usage in the statement above since merely pointing out the silence of the Trinity in the first five books would leave room for such claims in the other sections of the Tannach such as The Prophets and The Writings. As it happens, the Trinity can be found in all three portions anyway, in the Torah proper and the Scriptures which follow.
True, the Old Testament does not say in so many words that the Messiah will be God. But neither does it say he will not be God. What it does say is that Messiah will die for the sins of Israel and then rise from the dead (Isaiah 53). Jesus did this.
The Tannach also gives a calender indicating the exact day (according to Daniel 9) when the Messiah will ride into Jerusalem; March 30, 33 AD. Only one man rode in that day, Jesus. If he wasn’t the Messiah, that makes Daniel a false prophet. But neither the Tannach, nor the Talmud, nor the Midrash, nor modern day Rabbis are prepared to say that Daniel was a false prophet..
So Jesus is the Messiah. Messiah means “anointed one” or “one sent from God.” If he was sent from God, he was not a liar. If he was sent from God, what he taught was true. He taught that he was God incarnate.
No, Jesus was not claiming that he as a mere man had become God. He was claiming that the God of the universe had come to Earth in the form of a man.
Does that sound far fetched? Perhaps.
But the Old Testament has plenty of examples of God doing just exactly that, coming to Earth in the form of a man.
The word “Trinity” is not found in the Old Testament. For that matter, the word, “Trinity” is not found in the New Testament either. But we aren’t talking about the title of Trinity. We are talking about the concept of Trinity; the description of Trinity.
Let’s examine some of the appropriate verses of the Old Testament. In other articles I have already dealt with the Trinity in the New Testament.
What better place to begin than at the beginning, as in the beginning words of Genesis representing the very beginning of our whole universe.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
The word for God is Elohim and this is a plural word. It could actually translate as “gods” who created the heavens and the earth.
This leave us with a choice:
1) Either there is more than one god
or
2) God exists in some kind of pluralistic form.
Choice number one is not an option for an orthodox Jew since Scripture makes it abundantly clear that there is only one God.
“Hear oh Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one” (Deut 6:4 ).
“You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me” (Isaiah 43:10).
This leads us to the conclusion that God is somehow more than one and one at the same time. The Bible does not explain how God can exist this way any more than it explains how God parted the Red Sea or performed any other miracle. The metaphysics of His reality and existence go without explanation. But the question is not whether the Trinity can be explained. The question is whether this is in fact what the Bible teaches. If we understood everything about God, He wouldn’t be much of a God.
“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29).
Somehow God exists as three persons in one Godhead, God the Father, God the Messenger (who in New Testament days became God the Son) and God the Holy Spirit.
In the New Testament, God the Messenger was known by a different but very similar title; “God the Word.” This is because John was writing to a Greek audience. The term “word” (logos) in Greek was more than a written word or spoken word. It was an expression of divinity from above and shared the Old Testament connotation of messenger.
Prior to Jesus’ incarnation through Mary, He existed as God the Word, the expression of God.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”(John 1:1).
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
In the Old Testament we do not see that kind of special incarnation but instead many visits from God which could technically be called “ pre-incarnations.” In other words, without becoming mortal and literally taking on the limitations of human flesh, (as he was later to do as Jesus) God nevertheless took on human appearance at various times to speak with people on special occasions. This happened as far back as the Garden of Eden, shortly after Adam and Eve disobeyed.
“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3:8 )
How does the God of the universe walk? Well, God in His true original form, does not walk. This was a manifestation or theophany, offered for Adam and Eve’s benefit.
A theophany was not limited and could take on many alternate forms. When God appeared to Moses, He came as a burning fire and He was called “the Angel of the Lord.”
“There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush” (Exodus 3:2).
Obviously God does not look like a fire any more than He looks like a man. The key here is in the title: Angel of the Lord.
When we think of angels, we tend to limit our understanding to winged heavenly beings. That is certainly one accurate example. Indeed, there are many followers of God known as God’s messengers. That is what the word angel literally means, messenger.
But there is also a special messenger distinguished from heavenly inhabitants and this person is known as The Angel of the Lord.
You will notice that this angel speaking from within the fire identifies Himself as God and this was exactly who Moses understood him to be:
“Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God” (Exodus 3:6).
“Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” (Exodus 3:14-15).
Many years later, a different kind of visit from the Angel of Lord is reported, this time to the parents of Samson.
“The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, “You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son” (Judges 13: 3).
“God heard Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman while she was out in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her. 10 The woman hurried to tell her husband, “He’s here! The man who appeared to me the other day!” 11 Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he said, “Are you the one who talked to my wife?” “I am,” he said. 12 So Manoah asked him, “When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the rule for the boy’s life and work?” 13 The angel of the LORD answered, “Your wife must do all that I have told her. 14 She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, nor drink any wine or other fermented drink nor eat anything unclean. She must do everything I have commanded her.” 15 Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “We would like you to stay until we prepare a young goat for you.” 16 The angel of the LORD replied, “Even though you detain me, I will not eat any of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the LORD.” (Manoah did not realize that it was the angel of the LORD.)17 Then Manoah inquired of the angel of the LORD, “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?” 18 He replied, “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding. ” 19 Then Manoah took a young goat, together with the grain offering, and sacrificed it on a rock to the LORD. And the LORD did an amazing thing while Manoah and his wife watched: 20 As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground. 21When the angel of the LORD did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was the angel of the LORD. 22 “We are doomed to die!” he said to his wife. “We have seen God!” 23 But his wife answered, “If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things or now told us this.” (Judges 13: 9-23).
There are other examples in Scripture of people encountering a man whom they later understood to be God. The term “Angel of the Lord” is not always given in such instances. Abraham himself had such an encounter. In Genesis 18, we read, “ The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby.”
Later, in Chapter 19 we learn that two of these men were angels, the very angels who went into Sodom and rescued Lot’s family. What about the third man? After the first two individuals leave, Abraham engages the third man in conversation talking to him as God and asking for mercy upon any righteous inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah:
In fact, that very same man identifies himself by the name of God, the LORD (Adonoi) the word used instead of God’s true name given to Moses, “I AM” which was considered too holy for Jews to pronounce while giving Scripture readings in the synagogues.
“Then the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” 20 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”22 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD” Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city?(Genesis 18:17-24).
Abraham’s grandson Jacob also had an encounter with strange man who both blessed him and was eventually identified as God.
“So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared” (Genesis 32:30).
Many years later, Joshua, before his battle with the city of Jericho encountered a very unusual warrior:
“Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” 14 “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?” 15 The commander of the LORD’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so”(Joshua 5: 13-15).
If the phrase about sandals and holy ground sounds familiar, it is because Moses heard the exact same thing from God at the burning bush:
“When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” 5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God” (Exodus 3:4-6)
So much for the Torah and the Prophets. I also mentioned that Jesus could be found in the poetic portions of the Bible known as the Writings.
“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” (Psalm 45:6-7).
If we wish to deny the Trinity, then we must ask who God is talking to here for God is calling somebody else God.
What about the Holy Spirit? He too is found throughout the Old Testament, often called simply, “The Spirit of God.”
“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1: 2).
This immediately follows the verse about God creating. Why does the author not say “God was hovering over the waters?” Why does he go out of his way to distinguish God from the Spirit of God” if we are not talking about a separate person in the Godhead?
This same Spirit came upon certain men who were called to perform special tasks:
“When Saul heard their words, the Spirit of God came upon him in power, and he burned with anger” (1 Samuel 11:6).
“Then the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jahaziel son of Zechariah” (2 Chronicles 20:14).
In the Psalms, David said, “ Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11).
CONCLUSION:
Denial of the Trinity in the Old Testament may be popular and may have the the endorsement of traditional Judaism. But our authority is not tradition. It is Scripture itself. When examined honestly, we see the Trinity in many key Old Testament passages. Those who say otherwise are left with quite a challenge: How else can these passages be explained?
Share this on
