I Wonder Which Denomination Was Jesus in?
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” Deut 6:4
How do we find our way back to a shared community that is one,
living with a sense of wholeness and togetherness, celebrating our
differences yet working together?
How do we find a way past our
differences to His one church?
The Bride of Christ?
For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:
So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.
For
by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or
Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink
into one Spirit.
For the body is not one member, but many.
That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
Ye
also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus
Christ.
Jehovah our God is the only living and true God; he only is God, and he
is but One God.
Let us not desire to have any other.
The three-fold
mention of the Divine names, and the plural number of the word
translated God, seem plainly to intimate a Trinity of persons, even in
this express declaration of the unity of the Godhead.
Within the one God there are three persons.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Happy those who
have this one Lord for their God.
It is better to have one fountain than
a thousand cisterns; one all-sufficient God than a thousand
insufficient friends.
This is the first and great commandment of God's
law, that we love him; and that we do all parts of our duty to him from a
principle of love; My son, give me thine heart.
We are to love God with
all our heart, and soul, and might.
That is,
1. With a sincere love;
not in word and tongue only, but inwardly in truth.
2. With a strong
love. He that is our All, must have our all, and none but he.
3. With a
superlative love; we must love God above any creature whatever, and love
nothing but what we love for him.
4. With an intelligent love. To love
him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, we must see good
cause to love him.
5. With an entire love; he is ONE, our hearts must
be united in his love. Oh that this love of God may be shed abroad in
our hearts!
The speaker does not say, "Jehovah is alone God," but "Jehovah our Elohim is one Jehovah" (comp. for the force of אֶחָד, Exodus 26:6, 11; Ezekiel 37:16-19).
Among the heathen there were many Baals and many Jupiters; and it was
believed that the deity might be divided and communicated to many.
But
the God of Israel, Jehovah, is one, indivisible and incommunicable.
He
is the Absolute and the Infinite One, who alone is to be worshiped, on
whom all depend, and to whose command all must yield obedience (Zechariah 14:9).
The doctrine of which is, that the Lord, who was the covenant God and Father of his people Israel, is but one Jehovah.
He is Jehovah, the Being of beings, a self-existent Being, eternal and immutable.
And He is but one in nature and essence; this appears from the perfection of his nature, his eternity, omnipotence, omnipresence, infinity, goodness, self-sufficiency, and perfection.
For there can be but one eternal, one omnipotent, one omnipresent, one infinite, one that is originally and of himself good; one self, and all sufficient, and perfect Being.
And which also may be concluded from his being the first cause of all things, which can be but one; and from his relations to his creatures, as their King, ruler, governor, and lawgiver.
And for this purpose these words are cited in Mark 12:29 but then they no ways contradict the doctrine of a trinity of persons in the unity of the divine essence, the Father, Word, and Holy Spirit, which three are one; the one God, the one Jehovah.
For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,
1 Timothy 2:5
Pray to God for all men, Jews and Gentiles, barbarians, Scythians, bond and free.
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of the one God, who is the God of all the nations of the earth.
And God wills that all should come to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, because Jesus Christ is the One Mediator between God and all men, by whom alone men can come to the Father, and who gave himself a ransom for all.
One Mediator.
Jesus Christ.
The human nature of our Lord is here insisted upon, to show how fit he is to mediate for man, as his Godhead fits him to mediate with God.
There is but one God, who is the Creator of all men, and who, in a providential way, is the Saviour of all men; and in a way of special grace is the one God, the one covenant God of all sorts of men, of Jews and Gentiles.
Christ stands as a middle person, a daysman between them, and lays his hands upon them both; has to do with things pertaining to the glory of God, and makes reconciliation for the sins of the people.
He brings them that were afar off near to God, and makes peace for them by the blood of his cross.
By fulfilling the law, and satisfying justice for them.
He appears for them in the court of heaven, intercedes and pleads for them, is their advocate, and sees that all covenant blessings, of which he is the Mediator, are applied unto them.
And preserves their persons, which are committed to his care and charge, safe to everlasting happiness; and this Mediator is the man Christ Jesus.
All of us have a "go between" who has reconciled us to Almighty God. A man such as ourselves and a member of the Godhead, Jesus Christ.
God incarnate.
A man who paid the price of our sins on a cross. Who has shed His own blood on our behalf that we may be freed from the bondage of sin and made right with God.
A "man," absolutely and genetically: not a mere individual man: the Second Head of humanity, and a member of the Trinity.
His being "man" was necessary to His being a Mediator, sympathizing with us through experimental knowledge of our nature (Isa 50:4; Heb 2:14; 4:15).
Jesus Christ understands our pain and our struggles in life.
He is also God.
God, Himself, laid down His own life here on earth on our behalf that we might all be forgiven and have eternal life.
Jesus Christ has gone between us and Almighty God to reconcile us to God by His own blood.
Without the Shedding of Blood There is no Forgiveness (Hebrews 9:19-22)
By the grace of God anyone can come to Jesus Christ and declare that they believe that He had died for their sins.
And request that His blood wash away all of their sins and that He would write their name in the Lambs book of the Living.
The Conversion of the Jailer
Acts 16:30
and after he brought them out, he said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" 31They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."
Won't you accept Christ today?
Do you want to have confident assurance that if you were to die today you would indeed go to Heaven?
Do you want to have peace with God, knowing that all of your sins are washed away?
"Come now, let us settle the matter," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
Isaiah 1:18
"I shall put your sins from you as far as the east is from the west."
Psalm 103.12
You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:19
God's sea of forgetfulness.
It doesn't specifically say sea of forgetfulness but it does say cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. Before this it says he does not retain his anger forever, which would mean he forgives.
By Jesus Christ our sins have all been washed away and forgiven.
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