Writes world-class Christologist, Dr. James Dunn: "In the centuries following the New Testament the tension between the Lordship of Jesus and the oneness of God became the central problem of theology. And to this day it remains the chief stumbling block in Christian-Jewish, Christian-Muslim dialogue. To an important degree also it is the basic problem which underlines much of modern Christian theology: how to speak of God and Jesus today?" (Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, p. 54).

How indeed to speak correctly of Yeshua the Messiah and YEHOVAH God in holy scripture? Why does "theology" and thus matters of faith always have to be "a problem" and the cause of "tension"?!

The Bible has a very simple definition of YEHOVAH God. He is a single divine Self, a single Person. He is "the God and Father of our lord Jesus." The Father is the God of Israel and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Messiah recited and affirmed the unitarian creed of his Jewish heritage in Mark 12:28-34. There was no tension or "problem" here! That is, until from the second century the Catholic "church fathers" abandoned the Messiah’s definition of God as "Jewish"! You see the ugly head of anti-Semitism being raised here against the Jewish Messiah Yeshua!

"The LORD our God is one single Lord." That is the essence of simplicity and non-complexity. Jews to this day know that YEHOVAH God is a single divine Self. 1300 times at least in the New Testament the word GOD (o theos, the God) refers to the Father. The Messiah said that the Father is the "only one who is true God."

The real problem is that churches do not affirm what the Messiah affirmed as the heart of true faith! And if anyone is bold enough to suggest that the Church ought to repent and return to obedience to Yeshua’s creed, he is likely to be firmly rejected. The approval of men is much preferred by most above the approval of the Messiah! Tradition has its alarming power of blinding Bible readers to the simplest truths.

From the second century a disastrous development occurred which led to the abandonment of the Messiah’s own definition of God. While Scripture defined Yeshua as "the Lord Messiah" who was born in Bethlehem (no one imagined that God could be born!), the Church, after several centuries of furious dispute, eventually settled on a creed very much at odds with the Messiah himself. The councils pronounced their official view that Yeshua was the Lord GOD, the second Person of an eternal Triune God. It is an embarrassing fact that most churchgoers seem untroubled by the loss of the Messiah’s definition of God -- never imagined by the Messiah or Paul.

The blinding mists of tradition seem to have stifled the critical thinking demanded by educators of their students in every other field except that of thinking about who God and the Messiah are. How many sermons are delivered on the staggeringly significant words of the Messiah in Mark 12:28-34 where he announced as the most precious truth of all that the true God is a single LORD, the Father, whom the Messiah addressed as his God?

The suppression of this very easy truth has caused interminable division and confusion. If exposed and repented of, the result would be to relieve the theological world of its central "problem" and the vast tensions which it produced for Jewish-Christian dialogue. At the easiest level, it is not hard to understand that the Messiah was not a Trinitarian, and he would them be estranged from the Trinitarian faith statements of so-called Bible-believing churches.

Psalm 110:1 is an umbrella text, supervising the whole New Testament, and declaring that YEHOVAH God is one Person and the Messiah Yeshua is the supreme human lord. Pages of learned literature fully acknowledge that this Psalm provides a golden key to the mind of the Messiah and the New Testament.

The second lord, who now sits at the right hand of the one God, is adoni, "my lord." In every single one of the 195 occurrences of adoni in the Hebrew Bible, the reference is never to Deity but invariably to a human superior, occasionally an angel. This easy fact seems to escape notice from scholars who otherwise intently analyze the meaning of Hebrew and Greek original words!

Adoni properly translated is "my lord," not "my LORD," which would of course lead to belief in two Gods. Only a few translations translate adoni in Psalm 110:1 honestly and accurately. Others pretend to their readers that the word is Adonai, the LORD God!

A cure for cancer, if discovered, would presumably be welcomed worldwide. A cure for the confusion over YEHOVAH God and His Messiah is readily at hand. Yeshua is the lord, not LORD at the right hand of the One God (Psalm 110:1). Adoni is never a title of Deity. But that easy fact has been (unconsciously?) withheld from the public.

The Messiah would then be revealed as the founder of a unitarian faith, based on his Jewish heritage. The definition of God proclaimed by the Messiah did not differ in any way from that definition of God he had learned from Scripture.

The Messiah knew who it was at the right hand of the Father. He said that they would see the Son of Man (the human being) sitting at the right hand of power (Mark 14:62). Stephen likewise saw "the Son of Man" standing at the right hand of the Father (Acts 7:56).

This verse in Psalm 110:1, more often quoted from the Old Testament than any other verse by far, will yet change the face of Christian belief, if it is allowed to do so.

Yeshua the Messiah and Paul would be aghast at the notion that God had mysteriously become THREE in ONE, when everyone knew that He was a single Divine Self, the Father (Malachi 2:10).

Be sure to read our articles, The MYTH That Prevents a Human Messiah and How the "Virgin Birth" Doctrine Nullifies Yeshua's Claim to Being Messiah.

Hope of Israel Ministries -- Proclaiming the Good News of the Soon-Coming Kingdom of YEHOVAH God Here On This Earth!

Hope of Israel Ministries P.O. Box 853 Azusa, CA 91702, U.S.A. www.hope-of-israel.org

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