09-20-2008, 06:32 PM
Shlama Akhi Spyridon,
I think I have detailed my beliefs on this both recently and often. You can find a full discussion of the topic on <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.aramaicnttruth.org">http://www.aramaicnttruth.org</a><!-- m -->, see Path to Life essay, pages 76-78 and 91-107. Obviously that many pages speaks to the difficulty in answering quickly. Nevertheless I will try to give you the headlines here, but ask that if you don't understand fully to simply consult these resources--that is what they are there for so I don't have to repeat the same answers all the time--before following up.
Okay so the first thing to understand is that I don't regard "Trinity" and "Y'shua's divinity" as the same issue. They are two separate questions. Trinity and tri-unity are extremely flawed English terms. They change with the wind and have no roots in the original languages of Scripture. They appear NOWHERE, and that is a fact. They are a fourth century Roman fabrication. On the other hand, Y'shua does have the full embodiment of YHWH in himself. In that sense, yes, Messiah is both 100% human and 100% divine. That is why he said, "Not my will but Your will be done". That is the only way Scripture is not broken.
When dealing with aspects of YHWH the Christian west calls Father-Son-HS PROSOPON-personna-PERSON. I reject that formualtion because plural and separated divine personalities is the essence of idolatry that Y'shua himself and others condemned:
(Exodus 20:1-3-The First Commandment)
Then Elohim instructed the people as follows: "I am YHWH your Elohim, who rescued you from slavery in Egypt. "Do not worship any other gods besides me.
(Mark 12:28-34)
One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the discussion. He realized that Y'shua had answered well, so he asked, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" Y'shua replied, "The most important commandment is this: 'Hear, O Israel! YHWH our Elohim is the one and only YHWH. And you must love YHWH your Elohim with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.' The second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' No other commandment is greater than these." The teacher of religious law replied, "Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one Elohim and no other. And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbors as myself. This is more important
than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law." Realizing this man's understanding, Y'shua said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of Elohim." And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.
(1 Corinthians 8:6)
Yet for us there is but one Elohim, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live.
(1 Corinthians 10:6-7)
These events happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did or worship idols as some of them did. For the Scriptures say, "The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged themselves in pagan revelry."
(Ephesians 4:5-6)
There is only one YHWH11, one faith, one baptism, and there is only one Elohim and Father, who
is over us all and in us all and living through us all.
(James 2:18)
You believe that there is one Elohim. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder.
(Revelation 19:5-10)
And a voice came from the throne saying, "Give praise to our Elohim, all you his bond-servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great." And I heard, as it were, the voice of the great multitude and as the sound of many waters and the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying: "HaleluYah! For YHWH our Elohim, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give
the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. And it was given to her to clothe herself in the fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And he said to me, "Write, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb." And he said to me, "These are the true words of Elohim." And I fell to his feet to worship him. And he said to me, "Don't do that; I am a fellow servant of
yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Y'shua; worship Elohim, for the testimony of Y'shua is the gift of prophecy."
(Revelation 22:8-9)
And I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. And he said to me, "Don't do that; I am a fellow servant of yours, and of the brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship Elohim."
So this is unified testimony AGAINST TRINITY, but that doesn't mean there isn't a way to understand how Y'shua is also divine.
That answer comes in Tanakh. First, in Isaiah 11:1-2 where the attributes of YHWH rest on/in Messiah. Second, and more important, Zechariah 12:10. Zechariah, whose name means "YHWH remembers" (hint), is the only prophet to predict Messiah's coming directly by his future name, although Moshe in one place appears to come close and probably also knew. Panim al panim...
Now Zechariah also in 12:10 talks about YHWH speaking directly. YHWH then says "et asher dakaru" or "towards me whom pierced they". But YHWH is not flesh but Spirit (Genesis 1:3) and therefore cannot be pierced, so how does this happen? My answer is simple. YHWH calls the Son who is pierced YACHID, ONLY, an exclusive singularity term that appears only 9 times in Tanakh. That means that Messiah has certain attributes that NO ONE BEFORE OR SINCE CAN. It is Y'shua's flesh that holds YHWH's Spirit as YACHID (only begotten) Son, so when Y'shua's flesh is pierced literally (Psalm 22:16) so is YHWH metaphorically. But it is the MAN Y'shua as Messiah who dies on the cross and is resurrected by YHWH His Father. It is Father YHWH who reunites the nefesh and ruach of Y'shua (after the Son administered to those in Sheol, which is another unique aspect and another story) and restores him to physical life.
That is why Y'shua's death on the cross was not human sacrifice which would be banned but a QORBAN (offering dedicated to YHWH) of the highest speciality, but that's another story. Only Messiah has YHWH's name IN HIM (Exodus 23:20-22) as opposed to the TITLE El, the Name above all Names (Hebrews 1, Philippians 2).
Qnoma is a long discussion that I want to avoid for the present to keep things manageable. I want you to see this part of it first. Nazarene "Godhead" for lack of a better term comes from Isaiah 53:1. Messiah is the ARM of YHWH, but remember, the ARM is not separate from the body or mind. It neither moves nor even lives without being connected to the body. But it is the ARM of YHWH that saves humanity (Exodus 6:6). This is who Y'shua is on the divine side (not his human office) as the Word or Miltha. The ARM/WORD does the work of the body, like Creation for example (Psalm 33:6).
So yes to Y'shua having his humanity and yes to him having a separate 100% divine side that is the SHARING of the ONE divine nature. But no to Trinity. No to idolatry. No to denying the Shema that Y'shua and the NT writers taught and died to keep.
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
I think I have detailed my beliefs on this both recently and often. You can find a full discussion of the topic on <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.aramaicnttruth.org">http://www.aramaicnttruth.org</a><!-- m -->, see Path to Life essay, pages 76-78 and 91-107. Obviously that many pages speaks to the difficulty in answering quickly. Nevertheless I will try to give you the headlines here, but ask that if you don't understand fully to simply consult these resources--that is what they are there for so I don't have to repeat the same answers all the time--before following up.
Okay so the first thing to understand is that I don't regard "Trinity" and "Y'shua's divinity" as the same issue. They are two separate questions. Trinity and tri-unity are extremely flawed English terms. They change with the wind and have no roots in the original languages of Scripture. They appear NOWHERE, and that is a fact. They are a fourth century Roman fabrication. On the other hand, Y'shua does have the full embodiment of YHWH in himself. In that sense, yes, Messiah is both 100% human and 100% divine. That is why he said, "Not my will but Your will be done". That is the only way Scripture is not broken.
When dealing with aspects of YHWH the Christian west calls Father-Son-HS PROSOPON-personna-PERSON. I reject that formualtion because plural and separated divine personalities is the essence of idolatry that Y'shua himself and others condemned:
(Exodus 20:1-3-The First Commandment)
Then Elohim instructed the people as follows: "I am YHWH your Elohim, who rescued you from slavery in Egypt. "Do not worship any other gods besides me.
(Mark 12:28-34)
One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the discussion. He realized that Y'shua had answered well, so he asked, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" Y'shua replied, "The most important commandment is this: 'Hear, O Israel! YHWH our Elohim is the one and only YHWH. And you must love YHWH your Elohim with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.' The second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' No other commandment is greater than these." The teacher of religious law replied, "Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one Elohim and no other. And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbors as myself. This is more important
than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law." Realizing this man's understanding, Y'shua said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of Elohim." And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.
(1 Corinthians 8:6)
Yet for us there is but one Elohim, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live.
(1 Corinthians 10:6-7)
These events happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did or worship idols as some of them did. For the Scriptures say, "The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged themselves in pagan revelry."
(Ephesians 4:5-6)
There is only one YHWH11, one faith, one baptism, and there is only one Elohim and Father, who
is over us all and in us all and living through us all.
(James 2:18)
You believe that there is one Elohim. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder.
(Revelation 19:5-10)
And a voice came from the throne saying, "Give praise to our Elohim, all you his bond-servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great." And I heard, as it were, the voice of the great multitude and as the sound of many waters and the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying: "HaleluYah! For YHWH our Elohim, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give
the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. And it was given to her to clothe herself in the fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And he said to me, "Write, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb." And he said to me, "These are the true words of Elohim." And I fell to his feet to worship him. And he said to me, "Don't do that; I am a fellow servant of
yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Y'shua; worship Elohim, for the testimony of Y'shua is the gift of prophecy."
(Revelation 22:8-9)
And I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. And he said to me, "Don't do that; I am a fellow servant of yours, and of the brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship Elohim."
So this is unified testimony AGAINST TRINITY, but that doesn't mean there isn't a way to understand how Y'shua is also divine.
That answer comes in Tanakh. First, in Isaiah 11:1-2 where the attributes of YHWH rest on/in Messiah. Second, and more important, Zechariah 12:10. Zechariah, whose name means "YHWH remembers" (hint), is the only prophet to predict Messiah's coming directly by his future name, although Moshe in one place appears to come close and probably also knew. Panim al panim...
Now Zechariah also in 12:10 talks about YHWH speaking directly. YHWH then says "et asher dakaru" or "towards me whom pierced they". But YHWH is not flesh but Spirit (Genesis 1:3) and therefore cannot be pierced, so how does this happen? My answer is simple. YHWH calls the Son who is pierced YACHID, ONLY, an exclusive singularity term that appears only 9 times in Tanakh. That means that Messiah has certain attributes that NO ONE BEFORE OR SINCE CAN. It is Y'shua's flesh that holds YHWH's Spirit as YACHID (only begotten) Son, so when Y'shua's flesh is pierced literally (Psalm 22:16) so is YHWH metaphorically. But it is the MAN Y'shua as Messiah who dies on the cross and is resurrected by YHWH His Father. It is Father YHWH who reunites the nefesh and ruach of Y'shua (after the Son administered to those in Sheol, which is another unique aspect and another story) and restores him to physical life.
That is why Y'shua's death on the cross was not human sacrifice which would be banned but a QORBAN (offering dedicated to YHWH) of the highest speciality, but that's another story. Only Messiah has YHWH's name IN HIM (Exodus 23:20-22) as opposed to the TITLE El, the Name above all Names (Hebrews 1, Philippians 2).
Qnoma is a long discussion that I want to avoid for the present to keep things manageable. I want you to see this part of it first. Nazarene "Godhead" for lack of a better term comes from Isaiah 53:1. Messiah is the ARM of YHWH, but remember, the ARM is not separate from the body or mind. It neither moves nor even lives without being connected to the body. But it is the ARM of YHWH that saves humanity (Exodus 6:6). This is who Y'shua is on the divine side (not his human office) as the Word or Miltha. The ARM/WORD does the work of the body, like Creation for example (Psalm 33:6).
So yes to Y'shua having his humanity and yes to him having a separate 100% divine side that is the SHARING of the ONE divine nature. But no to Trinity. No to idolatry. No to denying the Shema that Y'shua and the NT writers taught and died to keep.
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth