28 ¶ And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? 29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
Of the many possible reasons that modernists remove “of all the commandments” from this verse in their Bibles is possibly the desire to deny the fact that there is only one God, one Lord. But, besides getting a copyright who can say what their motives for altering and removing verses are? See Deuteronomy 6:4.
Deuteronomy 6:4 ¶ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
First step. There is one God. Here is where I part company with the hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy,” with its line “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” The trinity is the three parts of one person, one God.
God consists of three parts, as we and the higher animals do.
God has a soul, the seat of self-identity and self-will.
Leviticus 26:11 And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.
Psalm 11:5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.
Isaiah 1:14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
You know that God has a Spirit, which is the Holy Spirit also called the Holy Ghost (a spirit and a ghost do not have physical bodies bound by the laws of nature). We also know that God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ is the body of God, the visible image of the invisible God.
2Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
Colossians 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
Hebrews 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
An image is the appearance of someone as made clear in Genesis.
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…
Just as an angel is the presence of someone or something which is actually somewhere else.
Isaiah 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.
When angels don’t represent something like a church it appears as a man and there are no angels with wings in the Bible.
Judges 13:6 Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible: but I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name:
Daniel 9:21 Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.
Luke 1:19 And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.
Revelation 21:17 And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the angel of God, the angel or appearance of the Lord.
Judges 13:21 But the angel of the LORD did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the LORD. 22 And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.
Judges 6:22 And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said, Alas, O Lord GOD! for because I have seen an angel of the LORD face to face. 23 And the LORD said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die.
Acts 27:23 For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,
Galatians 4:14 And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.
Judges 2:1 And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.
Humans also have a body, soul, and spirit.
1Thessalonians 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Man’s spirit is how he knows God if his spirit has been made alive and how he is known by God.
Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.
Animals can have souls or self-identity and will as opposed to simply reacting to chemical and light and heat stimuli like we assume an earthworm would.
Numbers 31:28 And levy a tribute unto the LORD of the men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep:
Job 12:10 In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.
They also have spirits.
Ecclesiastes 3:21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
Back to the trinity. The three parts of God can, unlike ours, act physically independently of each other. We die if they are separated in us.
Mark 1:10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: 11 And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Matthew 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
2 Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.
1John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
I have shown that these three parts of God are still God but distinct in their actions and purposes. It is only by faith in His perfection in the flesh and in His resurrection from the dead as a man in the flesh that we can have eternal life. But, God is one, that’s the point of this passage.
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