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April 7, 2013 |
| The Trinity in the Old Testament | ||
The triune 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 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 would fight against each other for control. This would be a government that does not work well. But in the Trinity of God, their individual wills are submitted 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 of each 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
This quote overstates the situation. The Old Testament frequently describes God as a plurality, that is, more than one being. That is not the same as evidence for a Trinity. There are however a few places where the Old Testament describes God as a Trinity.
Either way though, the Jews should have been receptive to Jesus saying he was the son of God, his Father.
In this study, we'll look at some plurality examples first, then in the next section we'll look at the Trinity examples.
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'.
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 1:26)
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 3:22)
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." (Genesis 11:6)
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 6:8)
"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. (Isaiah 41:21-24)
Also various authors and prophets refer to God using plural verbs and pronouns.
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.'" (Genesis 20:13)
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.
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" (Ecclesiastes 12:1)
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
The Lord says to my lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." (Psalm 110:1)
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
"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. (Malachi 3:1)
There are also examples where the author refers to more than one person as God. An example is shown here.
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. (Psalms 45:6)
As I said before, there is much less evidence that the plurality is exactly 3.
There are also tantalizing hints of a trinity.
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." (Numbers 6:22-26)
Here we see the word "Lord" repeated 3 times in a blessing from God. This could have been written with only a single use of "Lord." Also, each of the 3 parts uses an "and" clause, making it seem like each part stands alone.
There are also many references that describe God in different ways, which we now understand as the Trinity. There are references to God as:
Some of the symbols from the Old Testament also hint at a trinity. The Star of David, when correctly drawn, shows 2 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 the width of a side. Therefore if the two tablets were stacked, they would form a cube with all three dimensions being equal.
To understand this section it is necessary to understand that God has a personal name just like you and I have. It is most commonly rendered in English as Yahweh. This name appeared more than 6800 times in the Old Testament but was replaced after Jesus' time. This was done from a mistaken desire to keep people from overusing God's personal name, but they recorded every place where they changed it. That way, we can unwind what they did. But instead of reinserting "Yahweh" into the text, most translators insert the word Lord but in this form, LORD.
In this passage, for the translations that don't use Yahweh, the word "Lord," the word "LORD," and the word "lord" appear, but refer to different people in this passage, which can be confusing.
Back to our topic, 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 passage carefully, even in English, the whole passage is very odd.
Then Yahweh appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. 2 And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing nearby; he saw, and he ran from the tent door to meet them, and he bowed himself to the earth (Genesis 18:1-2)
Verse 1 makes it clear what is happening. Yahweh is appearing both in a form that is not a man and as 3 men.
Then they said to him, "Where is Sarah your wife?" […] 10 And He said, "I will surely return to you at this time next year […]" And Sarah was listening at the tent door which was behind him. […] 13 And Yahweh said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh? […] 14 Is anything too difficult for Yahweh? (Genesis 18:3-9,10,13,14)
The three men are not distinguished as being different in appearance from each other, and they speak in unison, asking the question, "Where is Sarah your wife?" Abraham is not concerned that they know he has a wife, and only one wife, and know her name. Then "He" speaks, which, from the context, must be Yahweh. Translators agree, showing this by capitalizing "He." Sarah is behind "him," which is an unclear reference that could be to Yahweh (nearest previous 3rd person masculine singular noun), but is probably to Abraham. Translators do not capitalize "him." Then Yahweh speaks again and refers to himself as Yahweh.
Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before Yahweh. (Genesis 18:22)
When it says the men leave, it can only be a reference to all the men, who were introduced as "three men", otherwise the text would indicate only two, for clarity. The men have left, but Yahweh, implicitly not a man, or he would have been one of "the men", is still there.
This passage could have been written much more simply than it is. The reason it is complex is that it is hinting at a point that it doesn't want to say clearly.
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 reasonable doubt that this passage is intended to depict God that way.
There are people who completely misunderstand what is going on in these verses. They say these are three angels (or maybe two angels plus Yahweh), that Yahweh does not speak separately from them, and that two of them appear again in the text as the angels who visit Lot.
We've seen that there were many hints in the Old Testament of the plural and even 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. At that time, they believed God was one. After Jesus was crucified, Judaism hardened its views on the nature of God and still does not accept that God is a plural 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 descendant language of Hebrew, so translations to Arabic are able to preserve the evidence mentioned above that is lost in English. Therefore the Muslims 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
