Three in One

 

Me:  How is your day Prodigal?

Prodigal:  I am jumpin’ round like cold water on a hot skillet.

Me:  Do you have a little time for me?

Prodigal:  I always have time for you!

 

This is from the book I have a Friend Who’s Jewish Do You? by Don Goldstein

 

If the Lord is one, then what’s this business of God having a Son, and the Holy Spirit?  Now if you are having trouble understanding that we believe in one God with a triune nature (Father, Son, and Ruach haKodesh), you are either Jewish and have had the Shema drilled into your head all your life, or you are just trying to reason how three can be one.  Perhaps this will help.

Just as you have a spirit, soul, and body but are considered “one”, so God is “one”.  Another example of this concept would be water is still one element whether it is in the form of liquid(water), steam(gas), or ice (solid).

Jews grow up learning the “Shema”.  (Known as such because Shema is the first Hebrew word in the verse).  It is like (but is not) the national anthem of Judaism.

Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohuenu Adonai Echad

“Hear O Israel the Lord out God the Lord is one. “Deuteronony 6:4

The last word “echad” means “united”, i.e. “one”.  Let’s look elsewhere in our Torah in Genesis where the sentence structure is identical to Deuteronomy 6:4 and the word “echad” is used.  When God is referring to two becoming “united” or “one” in marriage He uses the word “echad”.

Genesis 2:24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one (echad) flesh.

In Hebrew this would read “basar echad” or literally “flesh united as one”.  There is another word for “one” in the Hebrew language, “yachid”.  It denotes a singular one or an absolute one.  If God wanted to say that He was a singular one, He would have said “Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohenu Adonai Yachid” but He didn’t.  Instead He told us that He is “echad”, a unity of one.

 

Deuteronomy 6:1

Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it;

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

 

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