Can a Jew believe in the Trinity?
by the late Charles L. Feinberg, Th.D, Ph.D.
One of the chief objections of our Jewish people to the Christian faith is the teaching of the Trinity. The Jews contend that they worship and believe in one God and only one. Deuteronomy 6:4, called the Shema, may be taken as their creed. "Hear, 0 Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord." It is the practice of the orthodox Jew when he recites this verse, to prolong the last word in order to emphasize the oneness of God. Jews claim that Christians worship three Gods. If we read carefully John 17:3 "And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, Jesus Christ," or Ephesians 4:6: "One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all," or I Timothy 2:5: "For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus"; if these are read carefully, we say, it will be quickly seen that Christians do not worship three Gods, but one true and living God. Many believing Jews hold firmly to the truth that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob exists, as He has eternally, in three Persons who make up one glorious and only God.
In coming to the question of the Trinity every Jew must realize that it is
NOT UNDERSTOOD FROM REASON
Even the God that our Jews claim to worship was never discovered by pure reason. He was revealed and disclosed Himself in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. Man has never been able to find out for himself the things of God. The psalmist David has not overdrawn the picture when he says (Psalm 14:1-3): "The fool bath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works; There is none that doeth good. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men. To see if there were any that did understand, That did seek after God. They are all gone aside; they are together become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." No man can reason out the fact of the existence of the Trinity. Some have pointed to polytheistic religions with their triads of divinities, and claimed these are the source for the Christian Trinity, such as the Egyptian triad of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, or the Hindu triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Not one of these triads has the faintest resemblance to the Christian belief in the Trinity that the one God exists in three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is more to the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity than the concept of "threeness" alone. Unaided human reason will never fathom the great mystery of the existence of the living God. A man once said to Daniel Webster, "How can you reconcile the doctrine of the Trinity with reason?" The statesman of giant intellect said, "Do you expect to understand the arithmetic of heaven?"
In the second place, where we approach the subject of the Trinity, we have to take into account that it is
NOT UNDERSTOOD FROM NATURE
Many have tried to find analogies in the realm of nature to the teaching of the Trinity. Water, ice, steam; light, sound, heat rays; man's spirit, soul, and body all have been suggested as examples of the Trinity. They all fall short of illustrating the grand mystery of the existence of God; this is true even in the case of man who is created in the image of God. Man's spirit, soul, and body do not make up three distinct personalities, as is true in the Trinity. We do well not to attempt to explain the Trinity by examples from nature. God is supernatural and has no equal or analogy in the natural world.
An infidel once scoffed at the doctrine of the Trinity. He turned to a gentleman and said, "Do you believe such nonsense?" "Tell me how that candle burns," said the other. "Why, the tallow, the cotton, and the atmospheric air produce light," said the infidel. "Then they make one light, do they not?" "Yes." "Will you tell me how they are three and yet but one light?" "No, I cannot." "But you believe it?" The scoffer was put to shame. When we cannot fully understand and explain occurrences in the sphere of the natural, do we expect to fathom mysteries on the supernatural plane?
Finally, though the question of the Trinity cannot be understood from the angle of nature or reason, yet it is gloriously
REVEALED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES
This is the paramount and sufficient reason why every Jew should and must believe in the Trinity: it is revealed in the Jewish Scriptures given by God. It is clearly found in the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.
See in the Law of Moses:
Genesis 1:26: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
Genesis 3:22: "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil."
Genesis 11:7 (at Babel), the Lord said: "Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."
Genesis 31:11, 13 (the Angel of the Lord is the coming Messiah): "And the angel of God said Unto me in the dream, Jacob: and I said, Here am I.... I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst a pillar, where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy nativity."
See in the Prophets:
Isaiah 9:6: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall he called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
Isaiah 7:14: "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel (God with us)."
Isaiah 48:16 (all Three Persons of the Trinity): come ye near Unto me, hear ye this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God hath sent me, and his Spirit.
Isaiah 63:8-10 (again all three Persons): "For he said, Surely, they are my people, children that will not deal falsely: so he was their Saviour. 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. But they rebelled, and grieved his Holy Spirit."
Micah 5:2: "But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting."
See in the Writings:
Psalm 51:11: "Cast me not away from thy presence; And take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
Psalm 2:7, 12: "I will tell of the decree: The Lord said unto me, Thou art my son; This day have I begotten thee." "Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and ye perish in the way, For his wrath will soon be kindled. Blessed are all they that take refuge in him.
Psalm 110:1: "The Lord saith unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool."
Proverbs 30:4: "Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended? Who bath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in his garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name [obviously this could only be God], and what is his son's name, if thou knowest?"
All these passages indicate clearly to the open- minded that there is a plurality in the Godhead. God is One, but He exists in three Persons. The Hebrew word "yachidh" expressing absolute and indivisible unity, is found 12 times in the Old Testament, but not once of the unity of God. Look and see. Genesis 22:2, 12, 16; Jeremiah 6:26; and Psalm 68:7. The word in Deuteronomy 6:4 is not "yachidh" but "echadh" which expresses a compound unity. Again see Genesis 2:24; Numbers 13:23; and Judges 20: 1, 8, 11.
Moses Maimonides in his "Thirteen Principles of the Jewish Faith" is responsible for the present unscriptural position of the Jews. In the second principle of his creed we read: "I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be His name, is a unity, and there is no unity in any manner like unto His, and that He alone is our God, who was, is, and will he." The books of Moses and the rest of the Old Testament do teach the truth of the Trinity, but rabbinical authorities have departed from this Biblical position.
Dear Jewish reader, whom will you believe, Moses of the Old Testament or Moses Maimonides? Trust God and His Word and you will he saved and safe.
The old captain of the Merrimac was an inmate of the Pennsylvania Soldiers' Home. He was a skeptic. For a long time the chaplain tried to get him to read the Bible, but he would not. At last he said to the captain, "Read it, and mark in red anything that you don't believe. Begin with the Gospel of John." The captain, with a glitter in his eye, took up the challenge. He was sick at the time, confined to bed. Every few hours the chaplain, passing his door, would call in and say, "Captain, have you marked anything yet?" The old captain would grin, and did not say anything. After a day or two, when the chaplain stepped in, there lay the old captain dead, with his Bible open. The chaplain leafed through the Gospel of John. Nothing marked in all the first chapter, nor all the second chapter, nor all the third, until he came to John 3:16, and in red was written, "I have cast my anchor in a safe harbour, thank God!" He had found the only anchor that could grip and the only rock that could hold. Cast away your doubts and trust the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ; He will save you now!
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