Jesus Christ: One-God Preacher

By Kenneth E. Lamb

Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, "Which is the first commandment of all?"

Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one . . .’”

So the scribe said to Him, "Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He. And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."

Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

But after that no one dared question Him. (Mark 12:28-34, NKJV)

Jesus confirms the Nature of God

One of the vilest denials of Biblical Truth is saying Jesus never spelled out the exact Nature of God. The truth is Jesus confirmed God is One person, not three, as the trinity theory incorrectly says.

Our passage comes from the Gospel of Mark, written by John Mark, the nephew of Barnabas. He accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey but got homesick and returned to Jerusalem. When he volunteered to go on the second journey, Paul objected and had a falling out with Barnabas over the issue. Paul went on with Silas; John Mark went with Barnabas to Cyprus. Eventually, however, Paul and John Mark reconciled.

Peter’s teachings; Mark’s gospel

Mark’s gospel doesn’t tell us who wrote it. According to the Nelson Bible Dictionary, Papias (A.D. 60-130), a bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor (Turkey), said, “Mark, an interpreter of Peter,” wrote it. Mark was Peter’s secretary in Rome taking accurate sermon notes.

The church historian Eusebius (about A.D. 300) confirms this. It makes sense. The gospel reads like an eyewitness report, consistent with Peter’s experiences.

Mark was present when the Temple rulers arrested Jesus; he was the young man who fled naked (Mark 14:51-52). Since Mark wrote the gospel with Peter in Rome, we can date it to about A.D. 60, the first gospel written.

Mark targets Gentiles, specifically Romans. He translates Aramaic and Hebrew phrases, transliterates familiar Latin expressions into Greek and casts Romans in a neutral or favorable light. Its emphasis on suffering suggests he wrote it to encourage Roman Christians persecuted by Nero. It lives today to encourage us. Mark writes what Peter taught.

This month’s study focuses on Jesus’ conversation with a teacher of the law, referred to in the King James Version as a scribe. The scribes were Pharisees and the accepted authorities on questions concerning God’s Law (Torah – Genesis through Deuteronomy) and applying it to life (Halacha - “The Way” to live life in compliance with God’s Law).

The “powerful” confront Jesus in the Temple

The conversation between the two occurs when Jesus is in Jerusalem for the fourth of 5 times the week of His crucifixion. He enraged the High Priest the day before by overturning the Temple court tables the High Priest rented out to moneychangers and merchants selling religious items.

The High Priest’s anger had little to do with preserving the Temple’s holiness. The Roman occupiers let the High Priest make money by renting spaces for a slice of the revenue. Jesus was bad for business; He was cutting into the High Priest’s profits.

When Jesus arrived in the Temple courts the next day, priests (Sadducees), religious teachers (scribes), powerful family and tribal heads (elders), and politicians (Herodians) confronted Him. Their goal was to humiliate Him in front of everybody and stop Him from teaching Halacha (“The Way” of life) to the people. They asked Him religious questions they couldn’t answer, and didn’t think He could either.

He impresses one of the religious teachers with His answers fending off a direct assault on His authority, followed by a trick question about paying taxes to Caesar and finally another one about the resurrection.

Is God one “person,” or three?

This sets the stage for Jesus to tell us how many “persons” are in the entity we call God. You need to know the truth because it directly affects your salvation. You need to know who you worship and who hears your prayers.

Beginning about A.D. 325, religious leaders taught followers to split God up into 3 parts, or “persons.” This is called Trinitarianism, from which we get the word Trinity. It rejects the Bible’s teaching that the same One God, and only One God, appears to humanity as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. According to their teaching, each of those three is instead a separate and distinct person, exactly the same way you and I are separate and distinct individuals. Trinitarians say these “persons” are independent beings acting in agreement with one another in all they do. They teach you will see 3 “gods” in Heaven. All churches that officially teach this theory about God’s composition, regardless of the church’s name or how the individual pastor tries to soften or bend these teachings, are Trinitarian. No matter how much they claim in their church and literature they teach first-century Christianity, they don’t.

Did any Apostle ever believe what Trinitarians teach? Did Jesus ever teach what they teach?

No.

The Bible proves it: When asked the most important commandment of all, Jesus recited Deuteronomy 6:4. After telling the religious teacher “the LORD our God is One,” the religious teacher tells Jesus He is telling the truth. Of course, Jesus knows it is the truth; He is God, and so is talking about Himself. But the religious leader doesn’t know that yet about Jesus.

Since the time of Moses to this very day, every Jew, including Jesus during His time on Earth, repeats Deuteronomy 6:4 (called She’ma Yisrael – “Hear, O Israel!”). Jesus taught it is the most basic belief about God. He commands all Jews to repeat it when arising and before going to sleep. It’s required, not optional. Because God’s Word never changes, it’s just as true for us in the New Testament Church as it was for Jesus.

So, when Jesus said, “the LORD our God is One,” what did it mean to the religious teacher?

When one Jewish religious teacher tells another Jewish religious teacher God is One, they mean:

1 We always write about or discuss God in the singular. He is the only absolute reality, since all else is dependent on Him. There is no Creator and power but Him.

2 God’s essence is One, although we can perceive Him through various attributes. (Think of light through a prism. It is simultaneously one, and yet made up of various wavelengths from red to violet. God appears in several manifestations – Father, Son, Holy Ghost - but He is still only One in being, like the single ray of light.)

3 He is One unconfined by space or time. Without past, present or future, He is everywhere, always.

4 He is the Sole God. He has no “partners” ruling in Heaven with Him.

These points, especially the last, are where Jesus and today’s Trinitarian churches part company. You can see for yourself He taught the religious leader God, revealed in Deuteronomy 6:4, is the truth. Trinitarians don’t believe, and don’t teach, what Jesus taught.

Why does it matter?

Why is this vital to your salvation? Because now you know you worship God the way He truly exists. When you pray, you know to whom you are praying. You are praying to Jesus, “the fullness of the Godhead.” Trinitarians can’t honestly say who hears their prayers. When you call on Jesus’ Name, you are calling on God in every way He has reveled Himself to humanity. That is why Jesus is the only name by which we can be saved.

We baptize in the Name of Jesus because Jesus commanded the Apostles to baptize others in His Name. Jesus Christ: One-God Preacher; we teach God is One because that is the only way the Bible says Jesus taught it.

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