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language. This teaching of the ONE GOD can Commandments in their full implications -- this
not be reconciled with the doctrine of the Trin- is TRUE religion!
ity -- God as three persons, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit; nor with any doctrine which con- This teaching about the ONE God is not
fuses or equates the Messiah (Christ) with the merely some technical doctrinal point. In the
One God. key quotation above, Isaiah speaks of knowing,
believing, and understanding just who God is
Ironically, the historical Jesus Christ, whom (43:10). Note these three verbs. This is a vital
millions mistakenly uphold as the founder of matter of personal faith and experience. To
the Christian Church, PASSIONATELY AF- come before the One God, the Creator, the God
FIRMED this revelation of the ONENESS of of Israel, is very concrete and distinct experi-
God without the slightest compromise. Notice ence. It involves the whole being -- mind as
the following declarations -- well as heart.

And a certain ruler questioned him saying, The Awesome Name of God
"Good Rabbi, what shall I do to inherit
eternal life?" Yeshua (Christ) said to him, Of the countless thousands of deities
"Why do you call me good? No one is good throughout history, and the endless ideas differ-
except God alone. If you would enter into ent people have about God, how can one speak
life, keep the Commandments" (Luke of truly knowing the One true God? The term
18:18; cf. Matt. 19:17). God is used in so many ways. For most people
it is all somewhat vague and perplexing -- of-
[An expert in Torah asks Yeshua] "Rabbi, ten a bit unreal. After all, can anyone really
what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And say they absolutely know God? How can any-
Yeshua said to him, "What is written in the one be sure?
Torah? How do you read it?" And he an-
swered and said, "Hear O Israel, YEHO- It is certainly the case that we learn some-
VAH is our God! YEHOVAH is One! thing about the awesome greatness and power
You shall love YEHOVAH your God with of God by looking at our created universe, from
all your heart, and with all your soul, and the vast billions of galaxies, to the absolutely
with all your mind; and your neighbor as breathtaking complexity and wonder of organic
yourself." And Yeshua said to him, "You life on our own planet, to our own internal ca-
have answered correctly; do this and you pacity to know and feel and reason. It is amaz-
will live" (Luke 10:25-29; cf. Mark ing that many in our enlightened 20th century
12:29-34). lack a sense of absolute awe at Yehovah's
Creation. Because of a popular misunderstand-
These passages are quite extraordinary! In ing of the theory of evolution they have naively
both settings Yeshua is asked about "eternal assumed that "science" has somehow explained
life," or how one inherits what is called "the it all on the basis of a reductionist, materialis-
world to come." In both cases he emphasizes tic, mechanistic, process which operates purely
the essential affirmations of the Shema. It is by chance. Yet "nature," or the Creation,
seldom noted or pointed out that even the re- clearly points us to something beyond, to awe-
sponse of Yeshua, "Do this and you will live," some forces beyond ourselves that appear to be
is a direct quotation from the Old Testament purposeful and intelligent. Yet, from nature
(Leviticus 18:5). To know God as One, to love alone, we could never know God in the way the
Him with one's whole being, and to follow the Hebrew Bible speaks of this One who created

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