Many Christians are familiar with the ’90s worship song, “There is None Like You.” The song had a resurgence in popularity in the 2004 when it was recorded by the group Shane and Shane. Perhaps most memorable is the song’s refrain which extols the uniqueness of God:

There is none like You

No one else can touch my heart like you do

I could search for all eternity long and find, 

There is none like You

While God’s ability to connect with the inner man is certainly an aspect of His uniqueness, some are looking for a more intrinsic trait upon which to base their theology of God’s identity.

In an article entitled “The Uniqueness of the Trinity,” the author from Living For Jesus Alone Ministries, writes:

There are many things about God that stand out and make Him different from other gods throughout history…there is one key element that makes Him truly unique and separates Christianity from all other faiths. This key element of God is plainly declared in Scripture….This is the doctrine of the trinity.[1]

But is the triune aspect of God truly what makes Him unique?  Is it, as the author confidently states, “plainly declared in Scripture?” Is the one God of the Bible actually a three-in-one God? Let’s explore what Scripture says about God’s uniqueness.

God is unique because He is one and there is no other

The word unique is defined as, “the sole example, single, solitary in type or characteristics.”  Also, “having no line or equal; unparalleled; incomparable.”[2]  The quality of being unique is how Scripture describes God.  Note in the following passages that God alone (often designated as “LORD”[3]) is deity.  There are no other gods besides Him.

Exodus 8:10 (NASB) Then he said, “Tomorrow.” So he said, “May it be according to your word, that you may know that there is no one like the LORD our God. (emphasis added)

John 5:44 (NASB) [Jesus speaking] “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? (emphasis added)

Galatians 3:20 (NASB) Now a mediator is not for one party; whereas God is only one. (emphasis added)

Clearly and repeatedly God’s uniqueness as the “one” and “only” God is emphasized in Scripture, but never more powerfully as when stated by God Himself.

Isaiah 40:25 (NASB) “To whom then will you liken Me that I would be his equal?” says the Holy One. (emphasis added)

Isaiah 43:10 (NASB) “You are My witnesses,” declares the LORD, “And     My servant whom I have chosen, So that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me. (emphasis added)

Isaiah 45:5-6 (NASB) “I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God . I will gird you, though you have not known Me;  That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun that there is no one besides Me.  I am the LORD, and there is no other. (emphasis added)

Isaiah 45:18 (NASB) For thus says the LORD, who created the heaven  (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), “I am the LORD, and there is none else. (emphasis added)

According to the above definition of unique, Yahweh is the “sole example” of deity.  He is singular and solitary in type. He has no equal.  He is unparalleled and incomparable.  But is this unique, one of a kind God actually three-in-one as so many Christians have been taught?  What does Scripture say?  Scripture identifies God as being simply one.

 Deuteronomy 6:4 (NASB) “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!  (Mark 12:29)

When God led the Israelites out of Egyptian captivity, a culture marked by polytheism, He declared that He was different from all other gods; He was the only true God. This passage, known as The Shema (Hebrew for the word hear or listen), forms the foundation of God’s identity.  

How many is one?

The word “one” in Hebrew is echad.  Strong’s Concordance lists echad as an adjective meaning, “one.”[4]  Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon defines echad, as “one, each, a certain, only, once.”[5]  Simply put, “one” means one, which is what children’s author Tasha Tudor entitled her delightful children’s book on counting: 1 is One. [6]   The concept of one or a single something is simple enough for a child to understand.  Indeed, God instructed the Israelites to teach the fundamental truth of God’s oneness found in The Shema to their children.[7]  But in an attempt to find a triune God in Scripture, Trinitarians emphasize that echad is a word that describes a compound unity.  Mary Kassian, popular author, speaker and former seminary professor, wrote in her book, Knowing God by Name, that one in Deuteronomy 6:4 indicates a composite unity just as one cluster is made up of several grapes.[8]  What Kassian and other Trinitarians often fail to admit, however, is that the word one is an adjective that modifies the word cluster, not the word grapes.  There is no plurality to be found in the one cluster statement.  One still means one, whether it’s describing a single cluster or a single grape.  Some Trinitarians would have us believe that the use of echad (one) to describe God in Scripture is a veiled attempt to communicate that “He” is really a “they.” But Christian historian, Kegan Chandler, writes in his book, The God of Jesus in Light of Christian Dogma:

“In the 960 times that ‘echad’ appears in the Hebrew Bible, in no instance does it denote a plurality within the one; rather it is simply identifying something as ‘one  thing in number,’ not two or three things.”[9]

Furthermore, Scripture never explains that when God said He was “one” that He actually meant that He was “three” persons or even a compound unity for that matter.  This undeniable truth bears repeating.  We are never told in any of the 31,102 verses in the Bible  that the one God is really three in one.  Never.  Although it would seem obvious, its worth stating that if a doctrine is not taught in the Bible it, by definition, is not a Biblical doctrine.

Trinitarian author and former Fuller Theological Seminary professor C. Peter Wagner agrees that the doctrine of the Trinity is not found in the Bible. He writes:

Nevertheless, there is no appearance of the word Trinity in the Bible, nor is there any single passage that describes God as three Persons in one essence. That is why it took hundreds of years of debate to arrive at our trinitarian [sic] doctrinal conclusion. It obviously had to be the result of extrabiblical revelation.[10]

Indeed, the doctrine of a triune God was developed over time by Greek and Latin philosophers who, having converted to Christianity, attempted to reconcile their Platonic worldview with that of the Jewish Scriptures.  Interestingly, other Trinitarian scholars agree that the doctrine was a post-biblical development. Millard Erickson, former professor of theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a Trinitarian, writes:

The doctrine of the Trinity as we know it today did not simply spring full blown onto the scene of Christian thought at the beginning of the church’s life.  It went through a long process in which the church weighed varying interpretations of the biblical data and selected those it judged to be more adequate…We will see the doctrine of the Trinity being developed, layer by layer.[11]

Furthermore, Trinitarian and premier Catholic Bible scholar, John L. McKenzie, agrees with Wagner:

The Trinity of God is defined by the Church as the belief that in God are three persons who subsist in one nature.  The belief as so defined was reached only in the 4th and 5th centuries AD and hence is not explicitly and formally a biblical belief.[12] 

Moreover, Shirley Guthrie, Jr. author and seminary professor and a Trinitarian writes:

The Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity.  Neither the word ‘trinity’ itself nor such language as ‘one-in-three,’ ‘three-in-one,’ one ‘essence’ (or ‘substance’), and three ‘persons,’ is biblical language. The language of the doctrine is the language of the ancient church taken from classical Greek philosophy.[13]

Some Trinitarians, realizing that it is impossible to find a triune God in the Old Testament, contend that God was represented as a single person in the Hebrew Scriptures because Jesus had yet to be revealed.  What then does the New Testament teach us?  Does it reveal that God consists of three persons? Not according to numerous Trinitarian scholars.  For example, Emil Brunner, influential 20th century theologian and Trinitarian scholar writes: 

When we turn to the problem of the doctrine of the Trinity we are confronted by a peculiarly contradictory situation.  One the one hand, the history of Christian theology and of dogma teaches us to regard the dogma of the Trinity as the distinctive element of the Christian idea of God…. On the other hand, we must honestly admit that the doctrine of the Trinity did not form part of the early Christian—New Testament—message…”[14]

In addition, Trinitarian professor, theologian and prolific author, Anthony T. Hanson says:

No responsible New Testament scholar would claim that the doctrine of the Trinity was taught by Jesus, or preached by the earliest Christians, or consciously held by any writer of the New Testament. It was in fact slowly worked out in the course of the first few centuries in an attempt to give an intelligible doctrine of God.[15]

Furthermore, Christopher B. Kaiser, professor and theologian and a Trinitarian wrote:

The Church’s doctrine of the Trinity would seem to be the farthest thing from [the writers of the New Testament’s] minds, and today’s reader may well wonder if it is even helpful to refer to such a dogma in order to grasp the theology of the New Testament. When the church speaks of the doctrine of the Trinity, it refers to the specific belief that God exists eternally in three distinct ‘persons’ who are equal in deity and one in substance. In this form the doctrine is not found anywhere in the New Testament; it was not so clearly articulated until the late fourth century AD.[16]

What then does the New Testament have to say? Does it teach us about a three-person God? On the contrary, just as Moses taught the Israelites who lived among polytheistic nations that God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4), Paul also instructed Christians living in pagan Corinth that there is but one God.

1 Corinthians 8:4-6 (NASB) Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one. ⁵  For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, ⁶  yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him. (emphasis added)

Paul affirms the teaching of God’s uniqueness in verse 4 when he writes, “there is no God but one.”  This one God is not comprised of two additional persons, that is the Son and the Spirit.  Rather, in verse 6 Paul identifies the one God as the Father.  Jesus is identified by Paul as the Lord (master) and Christ (anointed one or Messiah).  This is Paul’s consistent view of God and Jesus throughout all of his letters.  For example,

Galatians 1:3 (NASB) Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (emphasis added)
 
Ephesians 4:6 (NASB) one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. (emphasis added)

1 Timothy 2:5 (NASB) For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (emphasis added)

What about Jesus?  Who does he say God is? 

Jesus addresses the uniqueness of God in what has become known as his “high priestly prayer.”

John 17:1-3 (NASB) Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father…³  “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (emphasis added)

In complete harmony with the rest of Scripture, Jesus identifies the Father as the only true God and himself as the Christ or Messiah, whom God sent.  In Jesus’ mind, the Father alone is God.  If we are to remain true to the faith, our belief must not deviate from that of Jesus’.

How then did this one God come to be viewed as a triune God?  

We have already quoted scholars who agree that the doctrine was developed over time. Unfortunately, a detailed account of the historical record regarding this development is beyond the scope of this article, however, for the sake of brevity suffice it to say that it was not until the year 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicaea that Jesus was officially viewed as God in addition to the Father. And it wasn’t until 381 A.D. at the Council of Constantinople that the Holy Spirit joined the ranks of deity. (For more on this topic see Alex Hall’s discussion of Adolf Harnack’s, “The History of Dogma,” and Kegan Chandler’s discussion on the topic entitled, “Pagan Influences on the Development of the Trinity”)

As Christians, we should find it deeply troubling that, according to Trinitarian tradition, the most unique thing about God–His three in oneness–is never mentioned, much less taught in the Bible.  It should compel us to remove our bias and preconceived notions in order to discover the God of Scripture who clearly and repeatedly says He is one and there is no other.  It is what makes God unique, and it should be the reason we join our voice to that of Scripture when we sing, “There is none like You.”

 

For more on the subject of God’s uniqueness see “The Testimony of Singular Pronouns”

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Footnotes:

[1] “The Uniqueness of the Trinity.”  Living for Jesus Alone, June 7, 2014, accessed April 3, 2019,  https://www.living-for-jesus-alone.org/the-uniqueness-of-the-trinity.html

[2] Dictionary.com, accessed April 3, 2019, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/unique

[3] English Bible translators substitute “LORD” for YHWH (Yahweh), God’s covenant name, using all capital letters so as to differentiate it from lord/Lord (adonai/Adonai).