The
Trinity Is Jewish
By
Rachmiel Frydland
Most modern Jewish people seem to have made their "peace" with
Jesus of Nazareth. Some consider Him to be a great, Jew, or even
the greatest Jew who ever lived. Some of our Jewish leaders, as Dr.Heinrich Graetz and Dr.
Joseph Klausner, compliment Him on His teaching.
Some admire His parables and purity, as Moses Montefiore; and Some as Sholem Asch and others, even consider Him to be the Messiah of the Gentiles. Today we often meet
Jewish people who acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah for Jew and
Gentile alike; and some are even willing to share these convictions with
other Jewish people. What then holds such
Jewish people back from joining with us and accepting Jesus as
their personal Lord and Savior? The hindrance some have
expressed to the writer of this article is the reluctance to accept the fact
that Jesus is supernatural. Moreover, from childhood we have been
inculcated with Maimonides' Thirteen Principles one of which is: I firmly believe that the Creator, blessed be
his name, is One: that there is no oneness in any form like his; & that
he alone was, is, & ever will be our God. We have been thus brought up
to think that if we believe that God is One, then this idea excludes
any idea of God manifesting Himself through Jesus the Messiah. This
Christian concept of God's triunity seemed to us to be a Gentile and
pagan idea. NOT SO! Christians, as well as Jewish people, must
believe in One God. There is no other. The God of Abraham. Isaac and
Jacob is the God of the Jewish people and of the Christians. The Hebrew
Scriptures of the Old Testament are authoritative for the Jew and for
the Christian. In them is found the confession that is
authoritative for all of us. Hear. O Israel. the LORD our God,
the LORD IS ONE.
Deuteronomy 6:4 TRIUNITY IN TANAKH (Old Testament)
While it is universally admitted by both Jews and Christians that God is One
and that there is no one beside Him, we are also compelled to
acknowledge that the triunity of God is clearly taught in the Torah, the
Prophets, and in the Writings --- that is in the whole Tanakh, the Hebrew
Scriptures of the Old Testament, & the New Testament. Not only in
the Tanakh but also in the Talmudical & Rabbinical writings this
concept is well known. Space does not permit us to present proofs from all
the sources in this short article. Here we present just a few
challenging proofs:
THE TORAH: When God (Elohim) create the
world He wanted to make absolutely clear to His creation that He is not
some abstract mathematical unitarian principle with
no analogy in all creation, as some of our philosophers tried to present
Him under Aristotelian influence. Instead we read in the holy Torah
these words: And (Elohim) said. Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness: Elohim
made man, a being composed of a triunity --- body, soul and spirit, in the
image of God; "Let us make man."
Even those of our rabbis who do not accept as yet the triunity of God,
realize that this verse is clear support for such teaching. Thus in
Midrash Rabbah on Genesis we find the following
comments on the verse: Rabbi Samuel bar Nahman
in the name of Rabbi Jonathan said, that at the time when Moses
wrote the Torah; writing a portion of it daily, when he came to this
Verse which says, "And Elohim said let us make man in our image
after our likeness," Moses said, Master of the Universe why do you give
herewith an excuse to the sectarians (who believe in the triunity of
God). God answered Moses, You write and whoever wants to err
let him err.
But surely God did not make Moses to write the whole Scriptures in order to
make people err. but rather to show them the
right way and the right revelation, namely that the One God is a triune God
who calls Himself Elohim and who says. Let us make man.
THE PROPHETS: There are many
Scripture verses which show clearly that God manifested Himself also as the
Word by which He created heaven and earth and by which He leads and
directs creation. He also manifested Himself as the Ruakh
Hakodesh, the Holy Spirit, who inspired the
prophets of God and who did mighty miracles through the great judges of
Israel, Gideon, Samson, and David. We want to point out
one Scripture which compels us to admit the triunity of God. Isaiah
the prophet speaks in the name of God and says: Come near unto me. hear
this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning: from the time that it was,there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit,
hath sent me. Isaiah 48:16 Here God calls the people to
come to Him, but He is sent by the Lord GOD and His Spirit. Exactly
the same teaching as we have found in the Torah. we
find also in the teachings of God's prophets. How else can it be? The
same God who commanded Moses to manifest His triunitarian nature commands
also the Hebrew Prophets to do the same. THE WRITINGS: Very clearly we find the same teaching
about God in the Psalms and in the other writings of the Hebrew Scriptures.
We read in Psalm 2 where the Holy Spirit, the Ruakh
Hakodesh, speaks through David and says: I will declare the decree: The LORD hath
said unto me, Thou art my Son: this day have
I begotten thee.
Psalm 2:7
Here is the Holy Spirit speaking through David and instructing David, that
the LORD, which is in Hebrew the ineffable name of Jehovah (which we
pronounce as Adonai, has a Son who is begotten of God in a most
supernatural way. Maybe King David himself did not well understand the
words that he was commanded to write by the Holy Spirit; but as Moses
and Isaiah, he obeyed. Be wrote this down for us so that there be no
misunderstanding. God who is almighty manifests Himself as a triunity,
leaving us no doubt as to His nature. IS TRINITY JEWISH?
But is such a concept Jewish? Is it not some Gentile or pagan concept that
has somehow crept into our Holy Scriptures as some
extreme liberalists would like to tell us? No, this was and still
is a Jewish conception of God creating and dealing with His
creation and His people Israel in a triune way. This quotation
bears it out: Exodus 19 starts with the words, "In the third
month." This is explained by the words of Proverbs 22:20, "Have
I not written to thee excellent (Hebrew, threefold) things in counsels
and knowledge." On this Rabbi Joshua bar Nehemiah said that
this is the Torah whose letters are threefold, alf,
bet, g(i)ml, and
everything is a Trinity: The Torah is Trinitarian, for it is composed of the
Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Mishna
(talmudical learning) is a trinity composed of
Talmud (learning) halakhot (daily Jewish laws)
and haggadot (historical items). The mediator consisted of a trinity
of Miriam, Moses, & Aaron. Prayers are a trinity of morning,
afternoon, and evening prayers. Israel is a trinity consisting of
priests, Levites and Israelites. The name Moses in Hebrew consists of
three letters. He is of the tribe of Levi, which again is in the
Hebrew three letters. from the seed of the Patriarchs who are a
trinity of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; in the third month which is Sivan, after
Nisan & Iyar on mount Sin whose letters are three as it is written.
"And they rested in the wilderness of Sin.".(Midrash
Tanhuma on Exodus 19)
If, according to our rabbis', God has made everything and arranged everything
in a Trinitarian way. then it must also be
Jewish and biblical to know that God, Himself is a Trinity. This He is and
has manifested Himself as the Savior, Messiah, and Son of God in the
person of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah. He then sent down the Holy
Spirit, the Ruakh Hakodesh,
on the Disciples in the third month, of the Feast of Shavuot, the feast
of perfection, celebrated after counting seven times seven. TRINITY AND COMMON SENSE
But. can three be one? Does not common sense rebel
against such a statement? Must we not state categorically that God
is either One or Three? Not so. As a matter of fact everything you come in
contact with is not a mathematical concept of one, but usually an item
composed of a trinity. The ancient Greek philosopher reasoned
out the theory of atoms by simply watching a black cow, eating green grass,
and then giving white milk. All things are composed of millions and
billions of atoms; but the atom itself is a trinity of a proton,
electron and nucleus. Perhaps we could best express it in the words of
Dr. Henry Heydt:
In Romans 1:20 Paul uses the creation of the cosmos as demonstrating this
Godhead (theiotes]. The universe ... is an
absolute triunity of space, time, and matter. Each of these in turn is an
absolute triunity. Space consists of length, breadth, and depth or height:
time is future, present, and past; matter is energy, motion, and
phenomena. Here we have not merely an illustration of three in one --- as in
the case of light, heat, and ultra-violet rays of the sunbeam, or the manifestation
of H2O as liquid, ice, and steam --- but
an absolute trinity composed of three absolute triunities. WHAT IS THE MEANING TO YOU ?
We now have only to answer the question. "What does it all
matter?" The answer is that it matters very much. It proves the
truth of God's Word. The most important thing is, what the Jewish Messiah
Jesus (Yeshua) said, "For God so
loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Do you want peace in your heart & peace with your Creator? Receive this
gift of God; confess your sins and believe in God's Son, the Korban
(sacrifice) for your sins. Then you will be
saved & have perfect peace in your heart. "But
as many as received him to them gave he the power to become the sons of
God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
Reprinted
by permission of
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