Chapter 5. Only One God

Source: The Trinity — Evidence and Issues, Robert Morey, Chapter 5 pp. 63ff

The first principle of the doctrine of the Trinity is that there is only one, true, eternal, living Being who is God by nature and Maker of heaven and earth. The doctrine of the Trinity is thus a rigorous form of montheism and is absolutely hostile to polytheism in any form.

Trinitarians do not believe that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three separate gods. Such an idea is tritheism which is a form of polytheism. Neither do Trinitarians believe that angels or men have ever or will ever be God, or be divine, by nature.

If these Trinitarian beliefs are true then what would we expect to find in the Bible?

We would expect to find in the Bible where God Himself says that He alone is God and that the gods of other religions are false gods.
We would expect to find in the Bible where prophets, priests, kings, and apostles state that there is only one God and the gods of other religions are false gods.

When we turn to the Bible, what do we find?

Only One God

God dogmatically stated on many occasions that He alone is God and that there are no other gods before Him; there are no other gods besides Him now; and there will be no new ones in the future.

(Translation: NASB)

Deuteronomy 32:39 'See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My hand.
2 Samuel 7:22 "For this reason You are great, O Lord GOD; for there is none like You, and there is no God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.
1 Kings 8:60 so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God; there is no one else.
1 Chronicles 17:20 "O LORD, there is none like You, nor is there any God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.
Isaiah 37:16 "O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.
Isaiah 43:10 "You are My witnesses," declares the LORD, "and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me.
Isaiah 44:6 "Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: 'I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me.
Isaiah 44:8 'Do not tremble and do not be afraid; Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me, or is there any other Rock? I know of none.'"
Isaiah 45:5-6 "I am the LORD, and there is no other; besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; ⁶ that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other,
Isaiah 45:28 "I am the LORD and there is none else."
Isaiah 45:21-22 "Declare and set forth your case; Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the LORD? And there is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none except Me. ²² "Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.
Isaiah 45:14 Thus says the LORD, "The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush and the Sabeans, men of stature, will come over to you and will be yours; they will walk behind you, they will come over in chains and will bow down to you; they will make supplication to you: 'Surely, God is with you, and there is none else, no other God.'"
Isaiah 46:9 "Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Jeremiah 10:6-7 There is none like You, O LORD; You are great, and great is Your name in might. ⁷ Who would not fear You, O King of the nations? Indeed it is Your due! For among all the wise men of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You.
1 Corinthians 8:4-6 Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one. ⁵ For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, ⁶ yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.
1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

The evidence is so overwhelming that even the demons understand that there is only one God (James 2:19). Yet, such cults as the Mormons teach that there are actually billions of gods and that they themselves will become gods and goddesses.

The Only True God

The God of the Bible is the one "true" God in opposition to the "false" gods of the heathen:

2 Chronicles 15:3 "For many days Israel was without the true God and without a teaching priest and without law.
Jeremiah 10:10 But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, And the nations cannot endure His indignation.
John 17:3 "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
1 Thessalonians 1:9 For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God,
1 John 5:20-21 And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

These texts demonstrate that such gods as Baal, Molech, Allah, Siva, Zeus, Ra, Thor, etc., are all false gods. They are not different names for the one true God of Israel. They are false gods because they are no gods at all. They are the creations of man.

The Only Eternal God

The God of the Bible is the one true God because He alone is eternal while all the gods created by man have a beginning and will have an end. They are creatures of time and space while the true God is timeless and spaceless, i.e., infinite in all things.

The eternity of God is taught in the Old and New Testaments in such places as:

Genesis 21:33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God.
Deuteronomy 33:27 "The eternal God is a dwelling place, And underneath are the everlasting arms; And He drove out the enemy from before you, And said, 'Destroy!'
Isaiah 40:28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable.
Jeremiah 10:10 But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, And the nations cannot endure His indignation.
Romans 16:26 but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith;
1 Timothy 1:11 according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.

The Only Living God

The one true God is a living Being and not a lifeless idol of wood, stone or metal. He has "life in Himself" and is thus eternally self-existent (John 5:26). He is called the "living God" many times in the Bible in contrast to the lifeless gods of the heathen:

Deu 5:26; Jos 3:10; 1Sa 17:26,36; 2Ki 19:4,16; Psa 42:2; 84:2; Isa 37:4; Jer 10:10, 23:36; Dan 6:26; Hos 1:10; Mat 16:16; 26:63; Acts 14:15; 2Co 3:3; 6:16; 1Th 1:9; 1Ti 3:15; 4:10; Heb 3:12; 9:14; 10:31; 12:22; Rev 7:2.

It does not really matter if we are talking about the ancient gods of the Middle East or the gods of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam or the cults and the occult. The authors of the Bible view the gods of the heathen as lifeless as well as false.

The only God by Nature

The apostle Paul reminded the Galatians of their pagan background:

Gal 4:8 — “However, at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those [gods] things which by nature are no gods.”
Ἀλλὰ τότε μὲν οὐκ εἰδότες θεὸν ἐδουλεύσατε τοῖς φύσει μὴ οὖσιν θεοῖς·

Paul states that all the while they were pagans, they did not know God. Lenski comments:

The condition of the Gentile Christians before their conversion ... is described by the constative participle, "not knowing God." ... It is a simple fact, the Gentiles did not even know the true God; they lived in utter pagan darkness and blindness.

He goes on to say:

All of the paganism found in the world today presents the same picture of the vilest and the most pitiful slavery. The pagan gods are not gods in any true sense of the word.

This is the same point which Paul made to the Romans and the Corinthians (Rom 1:18-25 and 1Co 1:18-24).

Secondly, Paul pointed out that the pagan gods they worshipped were "by nature no gods." The significance of these words is paramount.

When Paul wrote τοῖς φύσει μὴ οὖσιν θεοῖς·, he meant that while there are many different competing concepts of God, the Biblical God is the only true God and all the other gods are by their very nature not God.

The word φύσει is the singular feminine of φύσις which means the essential nature of things in and of themselves. It refers to what things are in their nature as opposed to mere appearance.

If the gods of the heathen are not God by nature, then what is their nature? The famous German commentator Heinrich Meyer comments:

For, in the apostle’s view, the realities which were worshipped by the heathen as gods, were not gods, but demons. In his view, therefore, their nature was not divine but at the same time not of mere mundane matter; it is demonic, a point which must have been well known to the Galatians from his oral instruction.

In 1Co 10:20-21, Paul warned the Corinthians not to participate in pagan sacrifices because:

... the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers in demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.

When Paul warned them not to sit at the table of demons, sipping from the cup of demons, while they enjoyed the fellowship of demons, he was paraphrasing Moses who warned Israel in his day:

They sacrificed to demons who were not God, to gods whom they have not known, new gods who came lately, whom your fathers did not dread. (Deuteronomy 32:17)

Moses did not hesitate to say that the heathen are worshipping demons and not God. While the authors of the Bible viewed pagan idols as nothing but wood, stone and metal, at the same time, they clearly believed that the unseen powers which lay behind these gods were demonic and evil (Deu 32:17; 2Ki 19:18; 1Ch 16:26; 2Ch 13:9; Psa 96:5; Isa 37:19; 40:8-20,25,26; 45:18; Jer 2:11; 5:7; 10:8-10; 16:20; Hab 2:18-20; Acts 19:26; 1Co 8:4-5; 10:20; Gal 4:8).

This means that all the gods of the heathen are demonic in origin and power. It really does not matter if it is Buddha, Allah, Siva, Krishna, the gods of the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses or the New Agers. They are all demon gods and any worship given to them ascends to the demons and not to God.

Many people today naively assume that all gods of all religions are equally "true" because they are all actually false. "God" is whatever you want he, she, it or them to be. Thus, no one should claim to worship the one true God.

The authors of the Bible knew nothing of the sirenic ecumenicism of our day. They believed that there was the only one true God and that all the other religions and their gods were not only demonic, but stupid and foolish. While such language is not politically correct, it is thoroughly Biblical:

Jeremiah 10:7-10,14 (NASB) ... For among all the wise men of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You. ⁸ But they are altogether stupid and foolish in their discipline of delusion—their idol is wood! ⁹ Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of a craftsman and of the hands of a goldsmith; violet and purple are their clothing; they are all the work of skilled men. ¹⁰ But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. ... ¹⁴ Every man is stupid, devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols; for his molten images are deceitful, and there is no breath in them.

Obviously, the authors of the Bible would not have won any ecumenical awards! The apostle Paul viewed all other religions as the idolatrous result of man's running from God:

Romans 1:21-23 (NASB) For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. ²² Professing to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

This is tough-minded monotheism at its best. Anything less is not biblical monotheism.

The Maker of Heaven and Earth

One constant theme throughout the Bible is that the God of Israel is the only true God because He is the Creator of all things:

Isaiah 37:16 (NASB) "O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, who is enthroned above the cherubim, You are the God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.
Isaiah 44:24-25 (NASB) Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, "I, the LORD, am the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by Myself and spreading out the earth all alone, ²⁵ causing the omens of boasters to fail, making fools out of diviners, causing wise men to draw back and turning their knowledge into foolishness,
Isaiah 45:18 (NASB) For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), "I am the LORD, and there is none else.

Other passages include: Isa 40:26,28; 42:5; 45:12,18; 48:13; 51:13; 64:8; Jer 10:12-16;

The prophet Jeremiah beautifully put everything together when he said:

Jeremiah 10:10-16 (NASB) But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. ... ¹¹ Thus you shall say to them, "The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens." ¹² It is He who made the earth by His power ... ¹⁶ ... for the Maker of all is He, and Israel is the tribe of His inheritance; the LORD of hosts is His name.

The importance of God as Maker of heaven and earth cannot be under emphasized. This is why the theory of evolution is the main weapon in the atheist's arsenal. If evolution is true, then the God of the Bible is false. It is either one way or the other.

Conclusion

What must be in order for what is to be what it is? When we opened the Bible we found that it does in fact teach the first principle of the doctrine of the Trinity: There is only one, true, eternal, living Being who is God by nature and Maker of heaven and earth. This concept is exactly what we expect to find in the Bible if the doctrine of the Trinity is true.