God and the Whistling Train Chapter 1 Section9
Recently, I went past a church which had a sign “God is not three, he is one.” Well, the first word in the bible confirms that he is both three and one.
There is just a little bit more that we need to add. Normally when we have a plural word the verbs around it follow suite. That is if the noun is singular, the verb will be singular as well. For example if there was one person whom we are discussing the words we use would be singular like ‘him’ and ‘her’ or ‘he’ and ‘she’ but if we are discussing more than one we would use a plural term like ‘they’. With the Word Elohim, which is plural, you would expect the verbs around it to reflect that status. However, they do not. They are singular. So the structure of the verbs indicate singularity where the noun is plural. This concurs with our understanding of the Trinity. God therefore is plural in nature but singular in action.
To most that is strange, but to us it is very simple. It simple because it is one of the fundamental facts of our belief. That is that God is one but he is also trinity. Father, Son and Spirit. Throughout the Bible we see this even when it is not actually recognised until the preaching of the disciples after the Ascension of Jesus. So the writers of the old Testament did not really grasp the implications of this first sentence.
Now that the Bible does not argue about God’s existence, it assumes that he is there. In that first sentence we get the picture that God is creative. Now, while he would be creative in the same way that we would see an artist, he is more so. God creates out of nothing. He even creates the material that the artist uses. There are implications of this thesis which will be discussed later.
The notion of God being assumed, as being there is tied up with the children of situation of the children of Israel at the time and who wrote these first five books.
As we see that God created we come to the next picture. The issue of course is whether it is a new picture. My feeling is that if the first issue is complete in itself and that the next is another retelling that enlarges our understanding, but is still limited to extremely broad principles.
Genesis 1:2 (NKJV,) The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.