The revelation of God in Yeshua means that Ultimate Reality — that is, the transcendental source of all that exists — is intensely personal, intimately knowable, and full of love. “Metaphysics” (i.e., that which is “really real”) is therefore not about an impersonal force known in objective relationship (i.e., a “what”) but a personal agency and creative mind known in subjective relationship (i.e., a “who”). The Scriptures teach that what is ultimately real (אהיה אשׁר אהיה) is the Ultimate Person of the LORD (אני יהוה). In Him we “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
The LORD who is the Most High, the possessor of heaven and earth (אל עליון קנה שׁמים וארץ) is not just the Creator and Sustainer of all possible worlds, but the Lover and Redeemer of our very souls — the One who empties himself to become “with us” and who overcomes the sickness of death for us… The climactic expression of the character of Ultimate Reality is revealed at Golgotha, the “place of the skull,” where God’s sacrificial life in Yeshua destroyed death by the greater power of divine love (Psalm 85:10). The heart of our Lord as he suffered and died for our sins reveals the great compassion of God; it is “ha’makom,” the place of his atonement for us; his hidden dark cloud, and his resurrection glory reveals our deliverance for death. God loves us despite knowing all of our sins and yet redeems us from its curse…
We “connect” with the truth of God by means of the instrumentality of faith, and the essential question is whether we are in a “trusting relationship” with God or not, for if we do not truly know God as our loving Savior, we remain lost, in darkness, and alienated from the life of God. Faith is self-authenticating as we experience grace in the exercise of our trust in God.
Practically speaking, our relationship with God “shows up” in our lives by means of the various choices we make, though particularly in our moral choices. That’s because righteousness is “ontological,” or grounded in what is real. Since God is righteous, doing acts of righteousness partake in God’s life and passion (1 John 2:29). On the other hand the practice of sin deadens us and turns us away from God’s Presence…
Love is essentially relational, and therefore the Scriptures reveal God as being in relationship both with others within creation, but also within himself – the One God is unity in plurality of relationship: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (John 17:24). The “I AM” of God (Being) is also known in the “Thou Art” of God (Doing). God is not only the Eternal Lover but also the Eternal Beloved, and the bond of that love is the Spirit of God “hovering above the depths.” “Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time anything came to be there I AM, and now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit” (Isa. 48:16). Note in this verse the transpersonal unity of the Godhead…. Now while the Torah certainly affirms that “God is one” (יהוה אחד), note that the word “one” (i.e., echad: אֶחָד) means something more than merely numerical identity (i.e., yechidut: יְחִידוּת) but instead unity in plurality, a “transcendental oneness” that points to the unfathomable mystery of the Name YHVH (יהוה) and the ineffable Godhead (אֵין סוֹף). God is love means that he is the Lover, the Beloved, and the Communion of true love in all possible worlds.
The doctrine of the tripartite-yet-one divine nature (השילוש הקדוש) is not known apart from the revelation of Yeshua, and it is an essential part of His message of redemption to us (John 17:3). In other words, if you believe that Yeshua embodies and reveals the “Who” of Ultimate Reality, then you will accept his teaching that God is expressed in relationship – the Son in relation to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, and that these three are “echad,” or one… “The Father has borne witness of me; whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 5:37; 14:9); “I and the Father are one”; “before Abraham was, I am…” “who is the liar but he who denies that Yeshua is the Messiah? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22). Believers in the Lord are commissioned to go and make students (תלמידים) of all the nations, baptizing them (i.e., identifying them) in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19).
Hebrew Lesson:
There are various clues given throughout Scripture about God’s divine nature (Rom. 1:20). The Torah itself begins with intimations of the “One-in-the-Many” character of God. When we read, “In the beginning, God (אֱלהִים) created the heavens and the earth,” we must ask who exactly is speaking? In other words, who is the divine narrator of the Torah? The next verse states that the Spirit of God (רוח אלהים) was hovering over the face of the waters, followed by the first “direct quote” of God Himself: i.e., יְהִי אוֹר: “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:2-3). The creative activity of Elohim (God) and the presence of Ruach Elohim (the Spirit of God) are therefore narrated by an omniscient Voice or Davar Elohim (the Word of God). Obviously the Spirit of God is God Himself, just as the Word of God is likewise God Himself, and consequently the very first verses of the Torah reveal the nature of the Godhead: God is One in the sense of echdut, “unity,” “oneness,” and so on, though not “one” in the monistic sense of a solipsistic mind (νοῦς). Indeed, a monistic idea of God (i.e., God as “absolute” oneness) is inherently self-absorbed and unable to accommodate being outside of itself. Such a god may serve as an “unmoved mover” or “first cause” of a cosmic machine, but it is not relational within itself. Indeed, there can be no sense of “person” apart from relationship, and therefore God’s Personhood is as eternal as his Being.
Yeshua is the Source of all life in the universe: כָּל־הַמַּעֲשִׂים נִהְיוּ עַל־יָדוֹ / “All things were made by Him (John 1:3). The “Word made flesh” is the “image of the invisible God” and the “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint (χαρακτήρ, ‘character’) of his nature” (Col. 1:15). All of creation is being constantly upheld by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3): “All things were created by Him (i.e., Yeshua), and for Him” and in Him all things consist (συνεστηκεν, lit. “stick together”) (Col. 1:16-17). As our Creator and Master of the Universe, Yeshua is both our King and our Judge, and therefore our lives center upon him… Ultimate Reality is found in the presence of Yeshua our LORD, and eternal life is found in Him alone: “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Yeshua the Messiah” (2 Cor. 4:6). “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).
“The grace of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah (האדון ישׁוע), and the love of God (אהבת האלהים), and the communion of the Holy Spirit (רוח הקדשׁ), be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:14).
Hebrew Lesson:
