Hear O Man, the LORD Our God is One!

How the Unity and Diversity in the Trinity Gives the Christian Peace

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts from Parson Farms:

Without a doubt the most famous or precious, however you want to put it, verse or set of verses for the Israelite, and Jews today, is the Great Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4 which says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”. That statement is as perfect a summary of the gospel and the redeemed sinner’s relationship to Jehovah as there can be. First of all Moses tells us to listen, to hear the truth. Second he notes whom he is speaking to, Israel, the people of God. What does he want them to know? The LORD, the covenant-keeping Lord who has ransomed captive Israel, is our God, and He is our God by His gracious gift of Himself in the calling of Abram out of the land of the Chaldees and granting unto the seed of Abraham the sign of that promise that He will always be their God and no created thing, no power or principality can take that away.

The Great Shema is like those precious words of Paul in Romans 8:38-39:

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

As we get into the Larger Catechism questions we need to be reminded ourselves of the practical nature of the Trinity. Everyone is always making that inquiry: Why does this matter and what can this do for me? While we recognize the selfishness of such thinking, it is worth answering that this morning. How does how many numerical persons in the Godhead affect me from day-to-day? What is the there-there I should be contemplating when my kids are being bad or my boss is being pushy, etc…? My goal is to help you to see that the matter is worth your time, for the reality is that without the Triune God not only do we not exist to have problems to begin with, but if God is not three-in-one and one-in-three there is no help available in the day of trouble. God is either God as He reveals Himself in the Bible or He is not God at all. The Christian is neither a polytheist nor a unitarian. It’s why it is a misnomer to class Christianity with Judaism and Islam as a “monotheistic religion”. We serve a different God than they do. Here’s the Q/A’s for today.

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